We cannot get past an explicit 'ordering' of man and woman in the second Genesis creation account, even if we limit it only to the chronological order of creation (which I do)... but maybe that is precisely the point. 1/7
Throughout the whole Biblical narrative, it is always the 'second-born' who is given the place of honour and the role of the protagonist - something the prevailing culture never 'deigns' to do. 2/7
And the Bible's point is that the thing we consider lesser than us 'never was lesser' to begin with. Nowhere is this clearer than with Christ himself. "The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone" is finally fulfilled in Christ... 3/7
...but actually this same message is imaged throughout the Bible as God demonstrates time and again the 'greater glory' of the second born. Even Christ is the 'second human'. And yet, this second born amongst humans is the firstborn of the new creation. 4/7
Someone has made the point that, in Eve, Adam sees his 'telos' (ie. his glorious destination) being imaged and this is precisely what fills him with joy, before their relationship is marred by sin and this joy is replaced by possessiveness and oppression. 5/7
Thus the point of the ordering is not positional (who is superior) but eschatological (how we are called to help each other reach our final destination). There is no priority of essence here, and any supposed priority on human terms in continually subverted and inverted. 6/7
If we could just shake off the hierarchical ordering of humanity that comes naturally to us sinful humans, we could then lean into texts like these to see how they lead us to greater glory and true equality, rather than more oppression and division. 7/7
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