Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 39:4 (Autumn 2025)
Article: Selections From "God’s Word To Women"
Author: Katharine C. Bushnell

PP 39:4 (Autumn 2025) p. 4

Selections From God’s Word To Women

Katharine C. Bushnell

Editor’s Note: Katharine Bushnell died in 1946 at the age of ninety, having lived a life of exemplary commitment to Christ. She was a medical doctor, missionary, social reformer, and scholar. She composed scholarly biblical lessons from 1908 to 1916. The lessons were gathered and published as the book God’s Word to Women in 1921. CBE reprinted the book in 2003. Bushnell’s writings are in the public domain, and certain selections pertaining to Gen 3:16 are excerpted below, without any modernization of grammar or style.

You are invited to read more about Katharine Bushnell in Priscilla Papers:

Mimi Haddad, review of A New Gospel for Women: Katharine Bushnell and the Challenge of Christian Feminism, by Kristin Kobes Du Mez (Oxford University Press, 2015), Priscilla Papers 30/4 (Autumn 2016) 27–28.

Ruth Hoppin, “The Legacy of Katharine Bushnell,” Priscilla Papers 9/1 (Winter 1995) 8–10.

Catherine Clark Kroeger, “The Legacy of Katharine Bushnell: A Hermeneutic for Women of Faith,” Priscilla Papers 9/4 (Autumn 1995) 1–5.

Julie Walsh, “What Katharine Bushnell Still Has to Teach Us Today,” Priscilla Papers 34/1 (Winter 2020) 26–30.

Lesson 12. Bible Instruction As To Adam’s And Eve’s Conduct.

[Paragraphs 90–92 are not reproduced here.]

93. But remember, we are now discussing the conduct of Adam and Eve at one point—in one incident only—of their lives. But that incident is the sin which has been held to have produced the Fall of the entire world of human beings. We again assert: The Bible nowhere holds Eve accountable for this particular deed; and it does, in the plain, definite language we have just quoted from the N. T., hold Adam accountable for that deed.

94. It is not by one single verse, such as Gen. 3:16 (the correct translation and interpretation of which is doubtful—see future lessons), that Eve’s greater culpability can be established, in spite of clear statements to the contrary, and many other incidental Scriptural proofs. For instance, God asked Adam, “Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat?” and He lays no such charge of express disobedience at the door of Eve. And also note that whereas the Almighty told the Serpent that his creeping gait, dust for his food, and his final mortal injury were to be “Because thou hast done this;” and whereas the Almighty told Adam that his drudgery, his fi...