c) The impact of the Fall
This is not to say that the Bible presents human sex and gender, outside the garden of Eden, as straightforward. To the contrary, it plainly teaches that the entrance of sin has had a catastrophic effect on every part of our humanity. Not only have our hearts and minds become corrupt, but our bodies, like the rest of the created order, have been “subjected to frustration” and are “in bondage to decay” (Rom 8:20-21, cf. v. 23 NIV). In other words, because sin and death have permeated both ourselves and our world, all kinds of things go wrong with us, both psychologically (at the level of the mind) and physiologically (at the level of the body).
One of the many ways the Bible acknowledges this latter fact is by introducing us to the category of the eunuch.44 In fact, in Matthew 19, following his discussion of the nature of marriage and the possible grounds for divorce and remarriage, Jesus distinguishes between three types of eunuchs: two literal and one metaphorical:
12 For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let the one who is able to receive this receive it. (Matt 19:12)
Leaving aside Jesus’ third category (which refers to those who have denied themselves marriage in order to serve God’s kingdom),45 his first two categories were, almost certainly, informed by the common Jewish distinction between “eunuchs of the sun” (Heb. saris hamma) – that is, those who have been eunuchs from the moment they first saw the sun (i.e., from birth) – and “eunuchs of man” (Heb. saris ’adam) – that is, man-made eunuchs, either by accident or deliberately. The first of these categories would, most likely, have included the various conditions that today are included under the ‘intersex’ umbrella.46
Whatever might be said of the status of eunuchs in later Christian reflection,47 it is important to repeat the point made earlier: Scripture does not present eunuchs as either a ‘third sex’ or a ‘third gender.’48 In fact, every eunuch we meet in Scripture is presented as male (as is indicated by the use of masculine verbs and male pronouns); simply a male who is unable to function sexually or procreatively (Isa 56:3) – either because of a birth defect or due to human intervention. Otherwise put, Scripture resists diluting the sex/gender binary, even though some do not fit neatly into it.
d) Dualistic holism or holistic duality
But what about those whose biological sex is unproblematic, but who claim to have been born in the wrong body? For example, how do we make sense of a biological male who sincerely believes he is a woman? Can a female soul end up in a male body or vice versa? Is this a genuine possibility outside the Garden of Eden? To answer this question, we need to consider the Bible’s teaching on the relationship between the physical (or corporeal) and nonphysical (or incorporeal) aspects of human beings.
The biblical authors display a variety of different ways of speaking about these two anthropological aspects.49 What is consistently taught in both Testaments, however, is a dichotomous or bipartite view. 50 That is, human beings consist of two distinct elements: body (Gk. sōma) and soul (Gk. psychē).51 Furthermore, while the body perishes at death, and so can be separated from the soul, God’s intention is for it to be reunited with the soul in resurrection at the last judgment. This, for example, is what enables Jesus to speak in the following way:
And do not be afraid of those who kill the body (sōma) but cannot kill the soul (psychēn). Rather be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body (kai psychēn kai sōma) in hell. (Matt 10:28)