The words “help meet” are not in the original scriptures. Check it out. Look up “help” in Strong's Concordance, and then look up “meet.” The Hebrew word, #5828 is the same for both.
That same word, #5828 is also used in other passages. Therefore, what is translated “help” should be “help meet,” right?
Ex 18:4 “And the name of the other was Eliezer, for the God of my father, said he, was mine HELP MEET, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh.”ROFLOL (Rolling on the floor laughing out loud.) Every man’s wife comes from the hills, right?
Deut 33:7 And this is the blessing of Judah: and he said, Hear Lord, the voice of Judah, and bring him unto his people: let his hands be sufficient for him; and be thou an HELP MEET to him from his enemies.
Deut 33:26-29 There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth upon the heaven in thy HELP MEET, and in his excellency on the sky.
The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, Destroy them. Israel shall then live in safety alone: the fountain of Jacob shall be upon a land of corn and wine; also his heavens shall drop down dew.
Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy HELP MEET, and who is the sword of thy excellency! And thy enemies shall be found liars unto thee, and thou shalt tread upon their high places.
Psalm 33:20 Our soul waiteth for the Lord: he is our HELP MEET and our shield.
Psalm 20:1-2 The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble; the name of the God of Jacob defend thee; Send thee HELP MEET from the sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Zion.
Psalms 121:1-2 I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my HELP MEET. My HELPMEET cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.
Notice how replacing the word “help” with “helpmeet” gives the sense of one who is inferior to the one helped. It makes God sound subservient to those He is helping. In spite of the claims of Christians for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood that wives are not inferior to husbands in their doctrine, the effect of “helpmeet” when applied to our strong and Almighty God, shows that it is indeed a word that reduces Him to a menial position of an assistant to one who is greater. If it does that in reference to God, it is obvious it also does it in reference to wives.
The verse should read, “I will make him an help.” According to the blue letter, “for him” is also added and there is no corresponding Hebrew. When the verse is correctly translated, one can look at those other passages that use #5828 and see that “help” means someone of strength, might, and power, someone who is a deliverer, a rescuer, a savior who can do battle against the enemy—and win—an excellency that may be superior to the one being helped.
So one can deduce that God meant that He would make a woman who is a deliverer, a rescuer, a help in times of trouble, a strong person whose strength may be more effective than her husband's. Yet, because God's whole life is not involved in helping man, we can also assume that woman's whole life will not be wrapped around helping her husband. She is to be a deliverer, helping him up when he is down, but not his servant whom he can look down on and dominate. Just like man is not to dictate to God, so man is not to dictate to his wife. One ASKS for help from one who is an equal or a superior (wife and God, respectively); one doesn't DEMAND it, because if one demands it, the helper has good reason to refuse to extend aid.
May I suggest this is what the translators saw and understood. And because they did NOT want to think of women as superior—or even equal—in strength or importance, and did NOT want society to think of women as anything other than the inferiors they thought them, they decided the scripture was wrong, and therefore they changed it. Notice that they did NOT alert us to their deed by putting meet, for, or him in italics. In other words, for centuries they have gotten away with adding to scripture, with the intent to change the meaning. And the men who had the education to be able to study the scriptures, who saw this “error,” kept silence, thereby choosing to be accomplices in the sin of adding words to scripture in order to change the meaning to nearly the opposite of what was intended. How many “little ones” have they offended by their deed(s)? Jesus said it is better that a millstone were hanged around their neck and they were drowned in the depth of the sea, rather than face the wrath of God for causing anyone to lose faith in God.
If translators and scholars would change the meaning of scripture and teach the same, (they have done this with other gender-related passages as well), if pastors would see the error, yet continue to teach a false doctrine, what else were and are they willing to teach to keep women in a man-designed inferior place?
Waneta Dawn is the author of "Behind the Hedge," a novel about a wife who discovers traditional marriage advice doesn't always work. See www.wanetadawn.com
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Unfortunately, BLB has an error in their interlinear. If you look at Genesis 2 on biblos: http://interlinearbible.org/genesis/2.htm you will see the word the BLB leaves out which was translated "meet"
ReplyDelete5048
כְּנֶגְדֹּֽו׃
ke·neg·dov.
suitable
Thanks, Waneta.
ReplyDeleteI have a personal issue I am working out. I know you are familiar with some of the details.
Finally, after probably fifteen years of struggling with depression, my husband is getting help. He sought medical help a year ago, but still his attitude has been more like he has a cold than that he has a cancer.
Depression is more of a cancer. It can not be taken lightly and it will not go away on its own.
Did you know that researchers know think that the brain is actually atrophying in a depressed person, due the the stress hormones being continually released? They now think anti-depressants are working because they enhance new neuron regeneration and not because they work to uptake serotonin more effectively.
Fascinating. But without doing anything with that information, it's not worth much.
So while my husband has been trying to get his doctor to take him off anti-depressants (he could be skipping doses for all I know) he is still depressed and it's getting worse.
Yes, I am the only one is his life who will fight for him! I am the ally who is probably saving his life by insisting he get meds and therapy.
I insisted on it because either the abuse ends or the marriage is over. I truly am the EZER he needed.
If I had been subservient and simply "adapted myself" to his withdrawal, irritation, and hostility, we would probably both be dead. And he would probably eventually die by his own hand, and maybe taking me out first.
Oh how I loathe fundamentalist doctrine!
"Unfortunately, BLB has an error in their interlinear. If you look at Genesis 2 on biblos: http://interlinearbible.org/genesis/2.htm you will see the word the BLB leaves out which was translated "meet""
ReplyDeleteCharis, I need to look into this further. I know that not all sources for translation are equally sound. I am looking for those that are as close to the original scriptures as possible, or those based on the scripture Jesus had when he walked among us. As I begin my research I found the bible lexicon http://biblelexicon.org/genesis/2-18.htm does have a word for "suitable" but not one for the supporting words "for him," which suggests to me that "suitable" may have been added by later translators. "For him" should be in italics in the KJV, but is not. Also, in Strong's concordance the number 5048 is not used for "meet" in any other instance.
Jocelyn Andersen is way more knowledgeable about this than I am, and checked it out from various sources. I am still in the early stages of learning about the different source material. She sent me this message:
"The Blue letter Bible uses the Leningrad Codex for the O.T. and I was just cross-referencing a BLB verse with my J.P. Greene Hebrew/Greek Interlinear Bible and my original strong's concordance, and there are some definite differences. Just a heads up to double check on stuff before taking BLB's word for it and blogging about it (the helpmeet thing is correct tho)."
To decide which is correct, a person would have to find out which text is the source. Any info on that?
I checked how this online site handles John 6:47. It leaves out "on me." Just "he who believes has life eternal." That is a glaring problem in my book. Believes what? The KJV says "He that believeth ON ME hath everlasting life." The "on me" is not in italics. So was it added or did someone omit it in other versions? Questions, questions. And it doesn't help that I do not have any hard copy except Strongs to search it out.
BTW, Jocelyn reported that the original Strongs id different from the "updated" Strongs, and that the updated version is not as reliable as the original. She thinks the online Strongs is the updated version. I bought my copy in 1978 or so, and don't have a clue if it is the original or the updated.
I just noticed an oddity in the link you sent.
The placement of "suitable helper" is in v. 19, where its talking about how God formed all the animals and brought them to Adam. In KJV it is not until the end of v 20 that the lack of a helper for Adam is mentioned. Yet the link you sent is so far removed from talk about the forming of Eve, that it sounds as if the animals are Adam's suitable helper. Is this an error? What do you make of it? I do know other languages put their verbs and adjectives, etc in different order, but this is completely not connected to Adam's loneliness.
"If I had been subservient and simply "adapted myself" to his withdrawal, irritation, and hostility, we would probably both be dead. And he would probably eventually die by his own hand, and maybe taking me out first."
ReplyDeleteShadowspring,
What you say is sad, yet true. I am so sorry you are living in such a hellish situation. You ARE making the best possible choices and are indeed your husband's best ally.
Just know you are not alone. I recently met a woman in a similar situation. She has to make decisions, like when to stop spending money on a business venture that was bleeding them dry--several business ventures, in fact. Her husband has bowed out from most of life and they don't have a marriage. She tried to respect his wishes when he said the car didn't need a trip to the shop, and now they have major repairs needed because she did it his way. What a horrid life! She's damned if she does and damned if she doesn't.
Living with a depressed husband when your church insists on wife submission "in everything" is financial, emotional, health, spiritual & etc suicide. He appears mentally competent, but he really is not.
I also have both heard and read that men often get abusive when they are clinically depressed. I do not know if this is verified or accross the board, nor why depression in men tends to lash out at loved ones, while depression in women tends to lash inward at themselves. Perhaps it is because both have been programmed to think it (whatever the "it" is) must be the wife's fault?
Because of situations like this it is so apparent that husband authority/wife submission doctrine can be destructive even when the husband appears to be "in his right mind." Additionally, because there are so many situations where there is no illness and husbands still abuse, and families are being devastated by the abuse, pastors and churches need to pay attention to the high cost of their teaching. How many women have to die at the hands of their husbands before the church will pay attention?
Shadowspring, DO stay safe! Please, have a safety plan in place. Even with a safety plan there are no guarentees that you will be able to save your life when and if he chooses to attack. And do find ways to protect yourself from his verbal violence, too.
Even though I thought I was thinking correctly, and not agreeing with my abusers blaming ways, after I left him, I discovered his words had seeped past my blocks into the deep places of my soul. It was very difficult to overcome the "tapes" that kept running in my head and heart. It seemed 20 of my affirmations still were not enough to counter one verbal attack of his. He had taught me well that my words had no influence whatsoever. What a horrid time that was!
"I also have both heard and read that men often get abusive when they are clinically depressed. I do not know if this is verified or accross the board, nor why depression in men tends to lash out at loved ones, while depression in women tends to lash inward at themselves. Perhaps it is because both have been programmed to think it (whatever the "it" is) must be the wife's fault?"
ReplyDeleteProbably so. Which is the greatest irony ever, is it not?
Girls are programmed to be responsible for everyone else. Boys are programmed to put the responsibility for everything on girls. And yet they have the gall to stand up and say in church that men are "servant-leaders"!
Women are the true leaders in the vast majority of families. They are taking that responsibility on themselves when they work so hard to "be submissive" and "respect their husband's wishes".
The husband could be making flippant decisions, not thinking like a responsible person at all in considering all the ramifications of his decision and how it will affect other people- and submission doctrine teaches that if the wife will just submit anyway, everything will work out as God honors her submission.
THAT'S A LIE!
God made you an ally woman, and if your man is about to screw things up by complacency and pride, you better point that out and take counter-measures. That's obedience to the ezer role- an ally suitable for this situation where your husband is about to screw things up for everyone.
I am in weekly counseling, Waneta. I really want things to work out. My husband is so screwed over and depressed because of his family's uber-religious dysfunction, because of the whole system of uber-religious dysfunction that is fundamentalist Bible translation missions. >=[
Not only do they demand translators send their very young and needy children away "in the name of God's love" to 10 month at a time 24/7 institutional care, they staff the institutions with wash-outs and has-beens, wounded people who have broken dreams, people with no training in child development and who were unfit for work in the field.
My husband spent his childhood abandoned, unloved, uncared car, ignored, bullied, and at this point only God knows what else. All in the name of Jesus, those religious fiends.
Our EMDR therapist thinks it is the horrors he hasn't yet faced that are behind the depression, PTSD.
As for safety, I have a good friend across the street, a car, a six foot tall teenage son, a cell phone and a brain. And Jesus. So, I'm good there. But thanks for caring.
One of us will have to leave if things don't work out, but he has agreed to see a professional recommended by our family physician to find a better anti-depressant, one that will work for him. And I think if we can get the right meds he will be able to face down his demons.
He does not blame me EXCEPT when he is the PTSD primitive brain, which I also understand from experience. When he is in his right mind (most of the time) he is a loving, loyal person. Please pray for both of us, if/when you pray for me.
"Girls are programmed to be responsible for everyone else. Boys are programmed to put the responsibility for everything on girls. And yet they have the gall to stand up and say in church that men are "servant-leaders"!
ReplyDeleteWomen are the true leaders in the vast majority of families. They are taking that responsibility on themselves when they work so hard to "be submissive" and "respect their husband's wishes"."
You are so right. Wives take responsibility for the actions of others far too often, and they are trained for that from childhood. And they are usually the ones who are loving their husbands and families self-sacrificially. Jesus said anyone who would be chief is servant of all. That discribes wives, not husbands. It is wives who end up being the "servant leaders," while husbands insist on being the boss.