Dru Johnson (00:00)
Why is the Bible so overwhelmingly positive about women?
That’s right, you heard me right. We’re going to be talking this week with Ingrid Farrow, president of Northern Seminary, Old Testament professor. She wrote this book, Redeeming Eden, How Women in the Bible Advance the Story of Salvation. Full disclosure, I’ve endorsed the book as well. It’s a fantastic read about all the different ways in which women are there at the most important junctures of scripture strategically, as she says. She has a fascinating personal story of how she got interested in this topic.
We talk and I give her all the hard questions about what she does with certain passages and how they seem to view women as well. So stay tuned. Make sure and like and subscribe to this channel if that’s what I’m supposed to say to you. And also, we don’t do this for free. It actually takes a lot of money to run the Center for Hebraic Thought and produce this podcast. So if you want to give, you can go to hebraicthought.org slash give or thebibicalmind.org slash give. Thank you.
Ingrid Faro (01:07)
When I talk about women in the Bible, the biggest obstacle, I think I can call it, and challenge is all of the triggers that it…
Dru Johnson (01:18)
Hmm.
Ingrid Faro (01:19)
that it springs off in both women and men because of the things that they’ve been taught and the ways that it has isolated them from God and for many of the women, it has decreased their interest in reading the Bible and distanced them from God and certainly frequently from the church. And with men also, some of the preconceived ideas that they have gotten about men or simply the confusion of because of the things they’ve been
taught about women in the Bible, don’t have any idea how to relate to women. Or they have ⁓ ideas that have caused a lot of damage in their own lives as well as in the women’s lives. So that’s really the biggest challenge.
Dru Johnson (01:57)
Hmm.
Yeah, there’s all these presets of triggers. I assume this may be a wrong assumption, but I assume that when it’s a woman talking about women in the Bible, there’s kind of this like, well, yeah, of course. ⁓ So you already have that obstacle to face in the minds of some people. What are some of the, you know, these caricatures and misunderstandings of women in the Bible?
Ingrid Faro (02:18)
Exactly.
Dru Johnson (02:30)
I wasn’t raised entirely in the church, so I don’t speak a lot of Christianese and I don’t know what a lot of people’s hangups are, honestly, so I’m wondering the ones you see.
Ingrid Faro (02:41)
Yeah, I was not raised in the church either. I was the first one to become a Christian in my family. And it was during the Jesus movement. So I entered into seeing all kinds of miracles and it was just fantastic. But, well, thank you.
Dru Johnson (02:48)
Wow.
No.
You do not look old enough to have become a Christian in the Jesus movement because I know a lot of those people.
Ingrid Faro (03:03)
Yeah, yeah, so
Dru Johnson (03:03)
Okay.
Ingrid Faro (03:05)
it was, you know, a little later on in it, but nevertheless, that was, you those were my beginnings. And there’s a lot of moves of God. They are very ecumenical and diverse. It’s God is moving and we know God does, He just moves through everybody. But then the group that I was part of became real.
Dru Johnson (03:17)
Right.
Ingrid Faro (03:26)
became part of a cult. And so people came in controlling and eventually the church that I was in became a place where the only sound a woman could make in church was when everybody was singing. That was it. Long dresses, doilies on the head, women weren’t even supposed to get an education and that was it. So.
Dru Johnson (03:41)
Whoa.
Ingrid Faro (03:49)
My challenge later on, once I started studying theology, and I started studying theology because I had so many questions, I knew I had experienced the reality of God, but my experience with the church was…
abusive, traumatic, and really, really bad. So I had come to the place where I no longer knew if God was good, if he was just, or if he loved me. And so that was actually my entry into starting theology to figure out who is this God. So that was my path. And so I was in a seminary.
that was predominantly complementarian as well, where they believed that women had very defined roles and so forth. And so I fell into that pretty readily. So I started out my theological training in that, but I was reading more and more and the more I read and as I was studying Greek and studying Hebrew, these questions are popping in my mind.
I remember one of the transitional books I read was a little book by Mike Byrd. was it? Bossy Wives, Body Haircuts, I’m Getting It Wrong. At any rate, this great little book when he was still, he had come out of a very complementarian background and he was in the process of recognizing that it was wrong and he…
talked about teaching a class of Romans and he got to chapter 16 and he was teaching about Phoebe and Phoebe is the letter carrier which didn’t mean that she was the post lady. It meant that she went there and she was the one that Paul had designated to teach the book of Romans, preach it to the church and he said if Paul appointed Phoebe
Dru Johnson (05:19)
Yeah.
Right.
Ingrid Faro (05:34)
to do that, then I must be interpreting the other writings of Paul incorrectly. And so that opened my heart to start looking at things differently and questioning. So it’s been a long journey, and my journey has simply been, what does scripture say?
Dru Johnson (05:40)
Yeah.
Mm.
Ingrid Faro (05:50)
because
who am I supposed to be? And I see so many women especially who are doubting and I myself, the first time I preached, like, can I really do this? Is this really okay? So all of the self doubt that comes in and then all the men who told me what I couldn’t do because I was a woman and the places I couldn’t teach, the places I couldn’t be, the spaces I was not allowed. So that’s some background behind the book.
Dru Johnson (06:01)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Ingrid Faro (06:20)
I am such a believer because scripture is too of the collaboration between all people men and women different ethnicities and so this book that I wrote Redeeming Eden it’s so much of it is showing the collaboration that takes place but also the boldness of women and it totally solidifies God’s love for women and that the
statement that I love to make is women are strategically placed in scripture to initiate or advance key movements in redemption history and that was a new revelation for me because I had recognized that women played important roles but seeing it as a thread, theological theme in scripture where God loves the great reversals, he loves the unexpected, he loves to work through
Dru Johnson (06:59)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Ingrid Faro (07:17)
those who are humbled, those who are overlooked, those who are underestimated. And through the second son, through David, the last son from a questionable family, God loves doing that. And then to see that God did that with women just blew my mind.
Dru Johnson (07:25)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s, it’s amazing to hear that journey because I think a lot of people that have made that journey get very reasonably jaded about what the church said to them and how it kind of talked to them in that mode. I will also point out that there are, cause I belonged for 13 years to a Brazilian PCA church. ⁓ and, ⁓
I always said you had to be there for a year or two before you figured out it was PCA because it was more Brazilian than anything else. But they held fast to the kind of the PCA’s ruling that women can do anything a non-ordained man can do. And so women preached, women taught, women led Bible studies, women with everybody, not just women’s Bible studies, whatever. So even in the complementarian world, do like there’s there is this open question that still needs to be pushed further.
about what exactly is it that women are doing in scripture? ⁓ And your strategic placement question, I know Richard Bauckham calls this gynecological interruptions or something like that. If you know Richard, it’s not surprising he would say that just matter of factly. ⁓ So there’s one that really puzzles me.
Ingrid Faro (08:41)
It’s a great laugh.
Dru Johnson (08:54)
And I don’t know what to do with it. I think one of the advantages of your book, sorry, my brain is all over the place right now, but we actually give you a shout out in our year in review in which I talked about one of the things I really appreciated about your book and I got to read ⁓ before it came out, is that it’s mostly descriptive. It’s just saying, look, here’s what’s going on in the text. And I think a lot of us have come, no matter what view of men and women, gender roles or whatever you think.
You read the Hebrew Bible long enough, much less the New Testament. ⁓ You’ll just realize, whoa, there are really prominent positioning of women. ⁓ Exodus 1 and 2 is one of those places where I say, look, Genesis is pretty hard. It looks like it’s pretty hard on women. It might just be hard on people who have bad attitudes or bad intentions. But just wait till get to Exodus 1 and 2. You will see. ⁓
No man stands up to do the right thing, but all women do in that case. So I wonder what you think about those kind of swings. ⁓ I wrote this essay for our book on gender where I had to write about the bad women of the Bible and I had to note women do all the worst things that men, they rape people, they murder people, they’re complicit in conniving, so it’s not like, there’s a very egalitarian view of women on the bad side as well. But what do you make of that kind of shifting landscape?
Ingrid Faro (09:58)
you
Mm-hmm.
Dru Johnson (10:20)
of female portrayal in scripture.
Ingrid Faro (10:24)
The Bible is extremely blunt. It is definitely not PG, not even really PG-13. And it is telling the story. So that’s one of the things I love about being an Old Testament scholar is that it’s telling stories, which is not very US American intellectualism. We want to be much more cognitive and tell me the moral of the story. Tell me what does this mean? But most cultures, even today,
Dru Johnson (10:30)
Right.
Ingrid Faro (10:51)
plus historically, learn through story. And they want you to actually think and engage with the story to see what are the twists and turns? What is the theme? What is the plot conflict that’s taking place? And so in Genesis as well, there is a plot conflict taking place and it begins in Genesis three. And so once we go there, once we understand, first we have to understand Genesis one and two, which I like to say every book, the way a book begins,
Dru Johnson (11:04)
Mm-hmm.
Ingrid Faro (11:20)
is important and is supposed to show us the direction it’s going in. So we really need to start in Genesis 1 and 2, even before we get to Genesis 3. And so to recognize Genesis 3 is where the plot conflict, the conflict of the plot came in and twisted God’s intentions. And then we can see how those twisted intentions continue to work out in the dysfunctional families in the book of Genesis. And
Dru Johnson (11:20)
Mm-hmm. Right.
Ingrid Faro (11:46)
But then when you see that the conflict that entered in, you can also see how God continues to try to make a corrective all the way through. And so my view of Genesis also became overturned, especially when I started in Genesis 1 and 2 and looked deeply into the language of God’s original intent and his plan for, and the pictures that he gave in Genesis 2.
to help us understand how male and female are to work together. So that was a great starting point for me.
Dru Johnson (12:19)
Yeah. And so maybe we should talk about, because you mentioned it was when you started learning Hebrew and Greek. And I would say you don’t have to know Hebrew and Greek to appreciate all of these points. We can thank God that we have great translations. But what are the things that for you that came alive, that jumped off the page, things that maybe aren’t obvious unless you’re, especially in Genesis 1, 2, and 3, there’s so much wordplay there.
Ingrid Faro (12:31)
Yes.
Yes.
Dru Johnson (12:47)
often doesn’t come across. but what was it for you that stood on off the page?
Ingrid Faro (12:51)
Well, originally it was Image of God Language and Catherine MacDowell and it was actually her Harvard dissertation, but she had it published and that still is actually my favorite book because it was so revolutionary in my life. So I continue to.
Dru Johnson (13:01)
Mm.
Ingrid Faro (13:05)
But what does it actually mean to be created in the image of God? And it’s not all the philosophical or sociological things that people came up with later. It is that we are God’s representatives. We are vice regents with God, male and female. And so that interplay in Genesis 1, 26 through 28 of singular, plural, plural, singular, working together, but still putting in the middle of the sandwich, male and female, he created.
Dru Johnson (13:26)
Yeah.
right.
Ingrid Faro (13:34)
singular humanity, you know, but he created them. So even in that it’s got a singular and a plural, so it’s showing that there’s supposed to be a unity in humanity between male and female. And then in verse 26 and 28 both include, so that they may rule. So it is ruling language as male and female over God’s creation.
but it doesn’t state over each other. It’s over the animals and all the living things. It doesn’t state over each other. So that hierarchical view is not included there. But then chapter two, the beautiful language from the Hebrew. And there’s been a lot more written about Ezer the word translated helper. And ⁓ as I love to do in class when I start it, what do you think of when you hear the word helper? Well, even Miriam Webster dictionary.
Dru Johnson (13:59)
Right. Well, interesting. Yeah.
Ingrid Faro (14:23)
defines helper as an unskilled laborer, other dictionary, an assistant. Yes, exactly. Yeah, the person coming behind to clean up the mess or who’s not really very capable. But then again, it has been circulated much more broadly in the public now, Ezer which is used 21 times. 16 of those times it’s used to refer to the Lord God, who’s again, not our little helper.
Dru Johnson (14:27)
Mama’s little helper, yeah. Yeah, right.
Ingrid Faro (14:50)
And then also, and even the Ezra K’Negdo, ⁓ opposite from ⁓ facing side by side, you can read all different, but even that language of someone who is a powerful ⁓ partner, who is coming alongside of, and the other three uses are used in military contexts of humans in battle. So it’s giving a very different image than the English.
thought, imagery of the word helper. And then it goes right from there into the second imagery. And again, this is imagery. It’s not describing biology. know, man being divided into, it’s not a biology lesson. They weren’t thinking that. It’s giving pictures. And there it says, it uses the word build, ⁓ which is, scholars will point out, it’s an architectural verb. It is used for building structures. So that becomes important when you look at the word that’s
translated rib in almost every translation and the movement toward that word rib came much later in history. So I’ve done some work on the historical development of how did it become rib, but it’s used 40 times in the Hebrew Bible. Tzelah is the word in Hebrew and it’s almost always translated side and it’s used out of those 40 times, 36 of the times it’s used to describe
Dru Johnson (15:50)
yeah.
Hmm.
Ingrid Faro (16:16)
the sides of the temple. And I checked with John Munson, who’s the scholar on, you know, that was his dissertation, know, Solomon’s temple. It is the supporting walls of the temple where also the storehouses for the treasures were kept. So it’s essential for the integrity of the temple. Also the sides of the tabernacle, the sides of the Ark of the Covenant. You gotta have the sides there for the mercy seat to be.
Dru Johnson (16:31)
Hmm.
Ingrid Faro (16:42)
to be held up, sides of the altar of incense, sides of the altar of burnt offering. So again, 36 out of the 40 times, it is used for sacred space, place where God makes his presence known. so sides also kind of like the K’negdo opposite from facing each other, it’s bringing in that same language in both of those images. And it’s just indicating how essential male and female working together are.
Dru Johnson (16:45)
Hmm.
Ingrid Faro (17:10)
as priests, because it’s within the context of serving as priests within God’s first Garden of Eden sanctuary temple. And so that is the imagery God is trying to put forward. So when you start there, it eliminates so many of the arguments and things that people have tried to put forward to make the woman less important, to remove one of the walls of the tabernacle, remove one of the walls of the temple. So I love to start there.
Dru Johnson (17:20)
All
Ingrid Faro (17:40)
And then from there, again, my work on Eve, just interrupt me if I’m going too long, okay. Yeah, yeah. And so when I started my work on the chapter on Eve, that was actually my biggest surprise. There were some great surprises with Bathsheba also, but in the story of Eve, what I did not expect to find was, ⁓
Dru Johnson (17:47)
No, no, I mean, I’m enjoying every minute of it, so…
Ingrid Faro (18:08)
looking at Genesis 315, which scholars sometimes use the term proto-evangelion, know, the first gospel, the pre-gospel, kind of the first good news. ⁓ But as I placed myself into the story, which I try to do when I’m reading scripture, I place myself in the role of the characters in order for it to become part of me.
Dru Johnson (18:13)
yeah.
Ingrid Faro (18:33)
and to what might they have been feeling? What are the words that are being used to describe their feeling? And so the words, the story is so important and the story is intended to draw us in, not for us to just try to draw conclusions from, but to draw us in. And yes, we do draw conclusions, but through the telling of the story. ⁓ so yes, the first major failure of faith, turning away from God, opening up the door for the serpent,
to become the God of this world is the way I read the New Testament on it. And again, I read canonically. So again, there’s some people will be upset if I’m not looking purely at source criticism, but it is, I look at it, I do the canonical literary reading of it. And so here’s this huge first sin, God is a good parent first asks them, what did you do? He’s giving them an opportunity to respond.
Dru Johnson (19:06)
Mm.
Ingrid Faro (19:30)
we hear Adam say, basically, it was that woman you gave me. And we never hear from Adam again, ever, that’s it. And then he asks the woman and she answers, honestly, I was deceived and I ate. ⁓ so that is an honest answer. And then before God gives the consequences of their actions, He gives them hope, He gives them a promise.
that there would be a point, an enmity would be appointed between the serpent and the woman and between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. But that seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. And yes, the seed of the serpent would crush the heel of that one. But from that point onward, there’s a looking for who is the one who’s going to crush the head of the serpent, who’s appointed from the seed of a woman. And it is the language from that promise.
that comes back in Genesis four in the words of Eve after the horrible event that she goes through of her first son who she thought would be the golden child. again, there’s rabbinic language in that and everything, commentary and some scholars pointing out that she thought Cain was the golden child. ⁓ But just imagining that horrible murder ⁓ and yet she did not.
Dru Johnson (20:36)
Right.
Ingrid Faro (20:54)
She remembered God’s words of hope. And so she names her next son Seth, which comes from the same word as appointed, which is usually translated God’s set enmity, but it’s the word appointed. She’s using that same word appointed. God has appointed me another seed. And Hebrew, we know that Hebrew plays with words that way. It brings back words to point you back to something else. And so,
we can read that as she is pointing back to hope that she hopes this one, maybe this is going to be the one who will crush the head of the serpent. And we see that of course Seth’s son, Enosh, and then people begin to call upon the name of the Lord, which again becomes synonymous with worship and salvation in both the Old and the New Testament. So we see this hope and then that looking for continues. So I loved.
For me, it was also Redeeming Eve. And for anybody who’s ever sinned, which of course is all of us, she and Adam, biggest sin of all time, right? But yet she still had hope and she still had faith in God’s promise and was looking for God’s redemption. And so for me, that gives hope for any of us. Who can say they sinned more than Adam and Eve? Because again, Adam was with her, so we can’t excuse him either.
Dru Johnson (22:16)
Right.
Ingrid Faro (22:17)
But so it gives hope. So that story of redemption, when I saw it started right there with Eve, that just blew my mind because we almost never hear anything positive about Eve. So it was great to bring in that story of hope at the beginning of scripture.
Dru Johnson (22:35)
Yeah, and so many people hang their hat of their views of sex and gender on these passages. I think the biblical authors also, mean, Jesus says it was not so from the beginning, right, when posed with the problem from Moses’ teaching. ⁓ Two things that I would be interested to get your take on. One, you point out it’s, ⁓ you’re like a sister from another mister and how you read the text for me. Like I vibe with what you’re saying so much and have read it that way.
Ingrid Faro (22:42)
Yeah.
Yes.
Dru Johnson (23:04)
as well and you have this very vital couple who’s like a strong force to be reckoned with, you know, coming out of Genesis 2. And it’s so disappointing. It doesn’t even seem like five minutes elapsed and both of them have already fallen. But what do you make of the fact that God does not look for the woman or address the woman, but look, he calls out to the man and addresses the man. And then I have another question on the heels of that.
Ingrid Faro (23:10)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, well he does ⁓ call Eve to account also. He gives them both the opportunity. And so in terms of the order of it, it says the woman was formed from the man, but again, ⁓ there’s some things that I don’t have answers to that I still kind of…
Dru Johnson (23:38)
Right.
Yeah.
Ingrid Faro (23:55)
question but nevertheless there’s also some of shown you know inverse order so the woman started the conversation with the serpent God asked the man first was the man the one who heard the it got God telling them the command in Genesis 2 16 and 17 yes yes yeah
Dru Johnson (24:12)
Right, right. Which he refers to in Genesis 317, the command which I commanded you alone.
Ingrid Faro (24:19)
Yes, so there’s again, there’s culpability there, but nevertheless, God is certainly not downplaying the importance of the woman. And also, I mean, the second son stuff that comes through, so all the way through, it’s the one who is second is never less than.
Dru Johnson (24:28)
Yeah.
Yeah. And you have that fantastically horrible line of the naming of Seth, who’s actually named, unfortunately, Shat. ⁓ But, ⁓ you know, for God has given me another son, for Cain killed the first one, right? She’s like, almost like she’s looking over at him. You know, the second part that I think gets a lot, maybe too much airplay, ⁓ is the, desire shall be for your husband and…
Ingrid Faro (24:49)
Yeah.
Yes, yes, yes.
Dru Johnson (25:09)
It’s translated typically, I think in most modern English translations, I think it’s always translated, and he will rule over you. I have argued that it actually makes more sense, following another Robert Vasholz, that it makes more sense to say it, the desire, teshuka. ⁓ Now it says it shall rule over you. think Genesis is a long story about women whose desires rule over them and then tell their husbands what to do, and then the husbands listen to them even when they’re not always right.
⁓ But I wonder if the he will rule over you creates more problems than it solves. I would also argue, and some people will say, Tashukah is feminine and Hu it is masculine, but ⁓ actually Hu is used ⁓ for feminine ⁓ verbs and adjectives all the time in Hebrew Bible. ⁓
Ingrid Faro (26:03)
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (26:05)
And the only mirroring language is in Genesis four, which again connects it to Genesis four. It’s sin is crouching at your door, but you must rule over it, right? So I wonder, A, do you buy that? ⁓ You don’t have to. ⁓ And B, what do you make of this line that gets used so profusely in people’s thinking about gender?
Ingrid Faro (26:14)
Yes, yeah.
Yeah, I think it’s certainly a very valid translation that the desire will rule because that does mirror the Genesis 4 use of…
parallelism, pretty much, and use of that word Teshuka, which only appears three times in the Hebrew Bible. ⁓ But even if it is, he shall rule over her, we certainly recognize. ⁓ And Matt Lynch has written about male violence in Genesis and so forth, and where we can recognize that, and even in the book that I wrote, that the way that men treat women ⁓ becomes a barometer of the direction that the leadership
Dru Johnson (26:53)
yeah.
Hmm.
Ingrid Faro (27:08)
that that man, sometimes the nation is going. And so where there is the abuse of women, that becomes the sign, that’s the signal, ⁓ things are not gonna go well for this person or for this nation. And so ⁓ I’m not sure either way, I can look at it either way, but for me, one of the ⁓ redeeming parts of this is that third use of teshukah, which is in Song of Songs, ⁓ chapter seven, verse 10.
Dru Johnson (27:18)
Hmm.
Ingrid Faro (27:36)
where the woman has the predominant voice in that whole song. And they’re both pursuing each other. It’s absolutely beautiful. But in that third use of Teshuka, where she says, his desire is for me. And so it flips, I see the song of songs, which could be translated the best song. Love is the best song. And so when love has that mutuality, ⁓
Dru Johnson (27:59)
Right.
Ingrid Faro (28:04)
And now it’s not her desiring him, but he desires her. Well, that is the redemption of love. That is the redemption of relationship. that’s also, of course, Paul says that the husband should love the church as Christ loves, love his wife as Christ loves the church. So that really, once again, brings a canonical reading.
Dru Johnson (28:11)
Hmm. Hmm.
Yeah.
Ingrid Faro (28:26)
and a showing of the teshuka when her desire is for him, but his is no longer for her. If his desire has become now to rule over her, then that is the dysfunctionality. That is the conflict, the chaos that plays out in the book of Genesis in every single family, where it is the men trying to rule over the women, the wives, the daughters. And every time they do that, it causes conflict. When they work together,
Dru Johnson (28:35)
Right.
Mm.
Ingrid Faro (28:54)
then we see some opportunity for healing. But I mean, Genesis is so dysfunctional. It should make most of us feel pretty good about our families. Yeah. Yes. yeah. Yes. Yep.
Dru Johnson (28:59)
Right, right. People are raised in broken homes, like they vibe with Genesis. They’re like, I know these people. ⁓
Well, you might have just, in that short statement, have redeemed the traditional translation of 3.16 for me, or at least given it some more credibility. So I think I have a linguistic case, but I think you have a conceptual case that works really well there. ⁓
When I go to SBL, the big annual meeting, I love to ask biblical scholars this one question. It’s kind of like, am I crazy or what do you see? And the question is simply this, in the Old Testament, we could talk about the Bible as a whole, but in the Old Testament, do you think, who comes off looking better, women or men? ⁓ So I’m wondering what you think. Do women come out, just in general, like when you get to the end, you’re like,
Who were the schmucks versus who were the heroes? ⁓ What would you say?
Ingrid Faro (29:58)
I would say overall the women. And of course there’s some women schmucks in there too, know, it’s, yeah. And there’s mixed stories and everything, ⁓ but yeah, it’s, I do think that it is predominantly the women, but they’re more understated. ⁓ There are a lot more men who are mentioned also, so they have more opportunities to screw up. yeah, yeah. What are the answers you get?
Dru Johnson (30:00)
Yeah. Right, there are. Absolutely.
That’s true. To highlight their faults, men…
It’s 100%, everybody says, women look so much better. Which then leads to this next question is, how do you get to first century Judaism, Hellenistic Judaism, where you have this extremely low view of women that seems to be floating around amongst Jewish culture? ⁓ Almost, you know, almost… ⁓
Ingrid Faro (30:29)
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (30:48)
resembling Greco-Roman views of women, that they’re inferior by nature as creatures. And I asked my Jewish scholar friends and Israeli scholars, I’m like, do you account for this kind of rabbinic, it’s not totalizing view, but certainly there are strong elements in the rabbinic literature as well. And their answer is just, it’s Helena, it’s just straight Hellenism. Like there’s only one place that can come from, it can’t come from the Old Testament. ⁓ So. ⁓
Ingrid Faro (30:51)
Yes.
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (31:16)
I wonder, going back to the Old Testament then, ⁓ where do you see the best examples of men and women working together in the way that they, you when they’re firing on all cylinders. ⁓ I have my own examples in my mind, that I’ll run past you, but I’m wondering what your examples are.
Ingrid Faro (31:32)
and I look forward to hearing yours too. ⁓ And actually the first one that is more just like popped into my mind is ⁓ Nathan and Bathsheba because twice he collaborates with her first to protect her and the second time to have her step up and basically invite her to counter her trauma and regain her voice. She regains her voice, which is one of the ways that you can recognize that there’s been healing from trauma.
Dru Johnson (31:42)
Mmm.
Ingrid Faro (31:59)
And so I really have come to love that collaboration, which was almost a lifetime of collaboration. so, yeah, first Kings one. So of course in second Samuel 11 and 12 and second Samuel 12, Nathan steps up to call out David for his sin and protecting Bathsheba. So of course, when he comes back, he’s still now protecting her and her son at the death of the King.
Dru Johnson (32:07)
in first kings one you’re talking about I assume
Mm-hmm.
Ingrid Faro (32:27)
And so I really appreciate Nathan stepping forward in both of those roles and her responding then in First Kings to step up and take her position, take her voice, regain her voice.
Dru Johnson (32:43)
Okay, so I read that the opposite, not that it’s not men and women working together, but I see that as working together for no good, that he’s merely trying to save his butt and that he Solomon fraudulently messiahed, basically. Or there’s the possibility that Solomon is a fraudulent messiah, not because of Solomon, but because of David’s crazy choices. But you’re right, they do work together and there is certainly care for her. ⁓ And maybe even himself, it’s
Ingrid Faro (32:50)
⁓ Well that could be too. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (33:13)
You know, people are complicated, they don’t have to be one or the other, ⁓ Any other ones? Again, I have my own, but.
Ingrid Faro (33:16)
Yeah.
You know, I
should have a whole bunch of it just on the tip of my tongue and suddenly I’m going blank. ⁓ So yeah, I’d love to hear yours because I’m going to remember this. Yeah.
Dru Johnson (33:28)
it’s fine.
Well, mine are wonky. Of course, it’s David. ⁓
But what’s interesting to me is that in Judges to some extent, and certainly in Samuels, you get this very clear drum beat of worthless men, this particular phrase, or that gets translated worthless men. Yeah, yeah. And they participate in all kinds of weird ways, but always bad, right? And at the same time, you get this drum beat of
Ingrid Faro (33:52)
Belial yeah. ⁓
Yeah.
Dru Johnson (34:02)
wise women sometimes just called the wise woman of abel the wise woman of tekoa right but certainly abigail would fit in that category as well and what’s interesting about what they do is so they are working together in a good way but it’s because the man has become rash emotional and dangerous ⁓ and a woman comes in and basically calmly coolly logically reasons with him about what he’s getting ready to do ⁓
Ingrid Faro (34:06)
Yes. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mm. Yeah.
Dru Johnson (34:30)
And then with David, he acknowledges, you’re right. And in some ways, you could see Judah and Tamar in a similar vein that you are right. I am wrong. I have misunderstood the situation. And maybe I’m saying that just from my own life experience with my wife, where I get hopped up about something and she’s like, no, you’re wrong on this. This is not, you know, and I go and have to sit and go, you’re right. I am wrong on this.
Ingrid Faro (34:38)
Exactly, yes.
Dru Johnson (34:58)
And I wonder if that counts as men and women working together, even though it’s, you know, one correcting the other.
Ingrid Faro (35:04)
Yeah, because ⁓ absolutely, ⁓ Judah, of course, in Genesis 38, he has become a Canaanite. ⁓ But because he does, when he’s exposed and when ⁓ Tamar does call him to account, ⁓ he does humble himself and acknowledge her. so we do see, so I think as I reframe the question as to
Dru Johnson (35:13)
yeah, yeah.
Ingrid Faro (35:32)
times that women call men into account for their behavior. And the man is willing to say, okay, because even Sarah and Abraham, of course Sarah’s treatment of Hagar is unacceptable. It’s just clearly horrible. But when she does say cast out the bond woman, God does tell Abraham, Abraham is wise enough to go to God. And God says, I will still take care of Hagar and Ishmael. They are not throw away people.
I have my hand on them, but do listen to her. so, yeah, and so sometimes the conversations aren’t beautiful or perfect or even well-motivated, but nevertheless, to know when to listen to each other is certainly important and to be willing to listen to each other, that is key.
Dru Johnson (35:59)
Right. Yeah, do listen to her voice. Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. And as I like to say, the Torah is not describing the most of it is not describing the world the way it should be. It’s just describing the way the world it can be despite the fact that we’re such a wreck. And I think it’s just a data issue. It’s kind of like when students initially retract some students, they recoil at the idea when I say like, look, the Torah is mostly about protecting the vulnerable and rich people can be vulnerable. Poor people can be vulnerable. Men can be vulnerable. Women can be vulnerable.
Ingrid Faro (36:29)
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Dru Johnson (36:52)
And they’re kind of like, that sounds like liberal gobbledygook. And I’m like, well, just read the text. Just keep on going through, and you see it over and over again. I think that’s what you’ve done well in this book, Redeeming Eden is you just read the text and say, you’re not over reading. You’re just telling people what’s going on there. And you and I have the advantage of we read through these texts regularly. And we read publicly, and we get all the critical feedback. And so we probably have an advantage perspective in just that.
Ingrid Faro (36:59)
Yes, that’s right.
Yes.
Dru Johnson (37:20)
we’ve had the time to sit and think about things that other people who have to go work a regular job. I’m going to refrain from saying a real job because maybe God has called us to this, but before we leave, I would love for you to tell our listening audience about some of your work because I actually discovered your work through your work on evil in the Bible. And ⁓ maybe you could give us a quick sketch of
Ingrid Faro (37:23)
Right. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
Dru Johnson (37:47)
What is evil in the Bible? How is it different than what we think it is? And then why is that important for how we live as Christians?
Ingrid Faro (37:56)
I began my research on evil. That was, as I mentioned at the outset, that was one of the reasons I started studying theology because I didn’t know if God was good. So that also means what is evil? I found I didn’t find enough information that wasn’t philosophical or, but really wanted to know what does the Bible define as evil and how is God good in light of that?
Dru Johnson (38:06)
Mm.
Ingrid Faro (38:26)
And so my simple definition, not that evil is simple because that’s one of the big things that I come against is let’s look at the complexity and all the different ways that evil can enter through humans, through nature, through malevolent forces, through ourselves. But my simple definition is evil is the corruption of creational and relational goodness. So I’m looking at what is good in creation because
that’s the predominant word, that’s the key word in Genesis 1, the sevenfold repetition of everything that God did, he looked at and assessed it as good, and in the end it was very good. And then also relationally, because then the next step is building relationship. So what did God view as good? And God’s view, God’s perception, how God sees things also became critical in my coming to understand what is good and what is evil, because God would look at something and assess
Dru Johnson (39:16)
Mm.
Ingrid Faro (39:24)
is good or it is evil, it is not right. And so we recognize all the kings become.
assessed in Kings and Chronicles as to whether or not they did good or evil in the eyes of God. And so that in the eyes of, in the sight of, in the perception of God, how does God view things? And God’s perception of what is good and what is evil is the one that matters because we find a contrary syntax to, and God saw that X was good to in the garden when the woman sees that the tree now that God has said is not
Dru Johnson (39:57)
Right.
Ingrid Faro (40:02)
good. Now she is is wrong. Don’t eat from it. Now she sees that that is good to make her wise, to give her her own independent wisdom. And then in Genesis 6, the sons of God saw that the daughters of Adam were good and they took. So seeing and taking and then that human seeing and taking for themselves
Dru Johnson (40:16)
Mm-hmm.
Ingrid Faro (40:24)
based on what they think is best for them rather than what is good for all of God’s creation. What is blessed, abundant, flourishing for all of God’s creation. ⁓ And so it clarified for me a simple way of going to God to say, Lord, how do you view things? As matter of fact, I’m just… ⁓
Dru Johnson (40:28)
Hmm.
Mm.
Hmm.
Ingrid Faro (40:50)
finishing up a chapter on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and I cite your work in that too on the Akedah. So thank you for that.
Dru Johnson (40:56)
okay. I have a very,
very long footnote in my dissertation on all the different views on knowledge of good and evil, and it’s… There’s a lot. Yeah.
Ingrid Faro (41:07)
Yeah, there’s a lot. yeah.
⁓ recognize, but recognizing that even that tree of knowledge was in the center of the garden. So, ⁓ God wants us to come to him.
for wisdom and which of course again the canonical reading, the wisdom literature and everything and the Torah itself going to God to understand, to gain wisdom, the fear of the Lord, the reverence of God is the beginning of knowledge and of wisdom. so ⁓ recognizing that evil is essentially choosing to go our way contrary to God’s way and that is going to bring chaos, conflict and the process of death every time.
And that is also the plot conflict of scripture. And so it became a real lesson for me to go to God and say, so one of my favorite prayers has become, Lord, show me what I need to know. So anytime something is where there’s conflict, where there’s chaos, where there’s just, you know, and I list the different words that are collocated that are associated with evil and also the words associated with good, where does this fit? And if I’m not sure, ⁓
Dru Johnson (41:53)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Ingrid Faro (42:19)
going to the word, like even the story of Abraham when Sarah came and said, cast out that bond woman. And then the Hebrew it says it was evil to Abraham. Well, you know, because it was like he loved his son, you know, he loved Ishmael. And so he goes to God and God says, don’t see this as evil because, and then God explains, but he goes to God, say, this is how I’m seeing this because, know, realistically it was, but then God says, there’s a bigger picture. Let me show you the bigger picture. I’m not going to abandon them. I’m still going to take
care of them, but this is something you need to do. So gaining our wisdom from God and letting God
teach us what is good in his sight and gain his perspective. So that’s a little bit. But again in my book I have a section on malevolent forces describing all of the different terminology that’s used in scripture for that. Our own culpability as humanity and then tackling just a little bit on nature and some of the other ways that evil can come in.
Dru Johnson (43:18)
Right.
Natural evils as they call them in the fly. Yeah, the philosophy discussion makes way too many assumptions for my taste. ⁓ But ⁓ before we leave on this topic of evil, ⁓ what do you do with, say somebody’s learning Hebrew and they start just doing the old search engine in the database for Rah and they go, wait a second, God is doing.
Ingrid Faro (43:24)
Yes.
Yes, it does. Yeah.
Dru Johnson (43:48)
evil and not just once but multiple times where he’s planning to do evil. ⁓ How would you talk him through that?
Ingrid Faro (43:48)
Mm. Mm.
Yeah,
yeah, and we had a little exchange on that too once and so recognizing that God does bring the consequences of disobedience. So ⁓ going our own way does have consequences and so ⁓ the reason that there is evil, I tend to say, is because we allow it, but God also will allow
Dru Johnson (44:08)
Mm-hmm.
Ingrid Faro (44:16)
the natural consequences to follow when we have not chosen his good. so that it would read as God doing evil. But again, I read it through. ⁓
Dru Johnson (44:19)
Mm-hmm.
Ingrid Faro (44:31)
the canonical reading and through the context of the passages, it’s always a result of, like at the end of Psalm seven, those who dig a pit for others will fall in it themselves. Those who throw something, it’s gonna come back on their own head. And Ezekiel and Jeremiah, all through, you just see these consequences that what you do will eventually come back to you. The evil that you have done to others is going to come back to you. And so that is how I read God doing evil.
Dru Johnson (44:42)
Right.
Yeah, no, I think that’s a really eloquent way to say it. And it is when I, well, I want to talk about who a very well-known, I can’t describe them media company that describes Bible content. I was like, you should do one on evil. And they’re like, it’s too touchy. And I said, there’s, there’s good ways you could do it and it’ll be okay. But that idea that God meets evil with unraveling disaster.
Ingrid Faro (45:10)
I’m
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Dru Johnson (45:29)
even maybe what might seem like atrocity, but that it’s always consequential, think putting those in relationship. And then it’s not a karmic relationship, but it’s actually people choosing to go their own way. okay, well, I have so many more questions I would like to ask you, but I think we should end it here. So Ingrid, the name of the book, I’m just gonna read the whole title, is Redeeming Eden, How Women in the Bible Advanced the Story of Salvation. and you wrote it, I forgot to mention you co-wrote this with Joyce Koo Dalrymple. ⁓
Ingrid Faro (45:38)
All right. All right.
Yeah.
Okay.
Dru Johnson (46:00)
And ⁓ I got a set of bookmarks with this that had… I thought it was… I thought this was my thought. I opened ⁓ the package. I got a set of bookmarks in cellophane wrapping. There was like 20 of them or 16. ⁓ And I thought, well, that’s weird giving me 16 bookmarks. I could only see the top one. And then I finally opened it up and realized, each one is a different woman of the Bible. It was brilliant. We later went, ⁓ does everybody get that if you order the book?
Ingrid Faro (46:04)
you
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
⁓ No, that was a ⁓ gift from Zondervan. yep, they were great to work with, yeah.
Dru Johnson (46:33)
⁓ it was brilliant. Yeah, it had a great idea.
And I guess you are now the interim president of Northern Seminary as well, and you teach Old Testament. Anything on the hopper that you’re going to be working on in the future here?
Ingrid Faro (46:49)
Yes, I’m working with Sylvia Raquel who’s a New Testament scholar. She’s mostly written for SBL ⁓ and on a biblical theology of forgiveness. So it’s part of Sondarvin’s series on biblical theology for life. we have, I’ve looked up every single use of anything related to forgiveness. She’s done the same in the Greek and now we’re trying to pull all the data together.
Dru Johnson (46:55)
Hmm.
Ooh.
Okay, I probably shouldn’t do this on air. in February, we’re releasing an already recorded ⁓ podcast I did with Joshua Berman. I don’t know if you know him. His next project is on forgiveness. I’ve read large chunks of it and it is fantastic. So we should connect you two. But so this is, I think when you sit down and look at the logic across scripture, he’s got lots of interesting insights and I’m sure you do as well.
Ingrid Faro (47:21)
⁓ I know of him, yeah. ⁓ fantastic.
Yes.
Dru Johnson (47:40)
⁓ It might have to change our conversation on forgiveness a bit and I assume you come to similar conclusions Yes, I Love it when multiple scholars are working on the same topic and it kind of becomes a force that has to be reckoned with so Excellent. Well, thank you so much for your wisdom Thank you for this book that you’ve given us something we can hand to people and have a reasonable conversation about it with Thank you for your work for the kingdom
Ingrid Faro (47:47)
It needs to, yeah, we need to change the conversation on forgiveness. Yes. Yes.
That’s great.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you, Dru so much. It’s great to talk with you again.
