Minneapolis, March 23, 2023
Dear Beth Moore,
Elizabeth! Wow! I just finished listening to your reading of All My Knotted-Up Life. I’m thrilled at God’s grace in horrific situations and your terrific grit!
This prompts me to reach out to you through this Open Letter and blogpost on Tru316.com on behalf of my wife and the upcoming release of the paperback edition of her book. My wife, Joy Fleming, PhD, PsyD, is not one of those “blue bloods” you referred to in your memoir. She just loves Jesus and studying His Word.
At a young age she encouraged her parents to help her come to the Lord. Around age 11, reading through her Bible, she asked God to help her understand the troubling words she came across from God to Eve in Genesis 3:16. After her prayer she put that verse “on the back burner and turned the heat down low” as our friend Walter Kaiser likes to say.
Joy ended up studying at Wheaton and then Trinity where she was challenged by classmates (men) who asked, “Why are you here?” Their snarky comments got to her but she would answer simply, “I love God’s Word and am here to study it in the original languages, and no I’m not planning to be a pastor.”
Still loving Jesus, she and I became seminary professors in French-speaking Africa. She was encouraged to write her dissertation not on some obscure passage that interested her but on a solid life-changing passage that would help the African church. As an Old Testament Professor, God led her to research Genesis 2-3. She discovered that God didn’t curse Eve (or Adam) or limit woman in any way.
Back home in Minneapolis she was asked to condense her 407 pages of research into something more accessible. She did. Afterwards she became a licensed psychologist.
Request! We now are working on a paperback edition of her book with Study Guides for each chapter written by a former BSF Teaching Leader. Would you be willing to write an introductory comment for it? The title is Man and Woman in Biblical Unity, Theology from Genesis 2-3.
Problem! Two years ago, the Lord encouraged me get the word out on Joy’s research and her book. It had gotten some attention in the ’90’s but had since dropped off the radar.
Beth! Genesis 3:16 has been mistranslated. The resulting teaching based on the poor wording has caused great harm in Africa and around the world!
I started teaching her material step-by-step on The Eden Podcast. I then added my research on parallel passages in the New Testament. Next we turned the first four seasons into four volumes in The Eden Book Series starting with The Book of Eden, Genesis 2-3 by Bruce C. E. Fleming.
The Eden Podcast has been downloaded from 107 countries and we have heard many heartfelt testimonials. Now we are determined to get Joy’s special book into the hands of a new generation of readers!
Many of the responses we are getting are from wounded wives in Christian households who had stopped trusting and studying their Bibles. They report coming back to trusting the Lord again thanks to our help!
We just launched the Tru316 Foundation (Tru316.com):
(1) to continue educating those who love and want to study the Bible and
(2) to interact with Bible revision committee members to “true” the verse of
Genesis 3:16 and related passages.
I think it would be a timely pairing for you and Joy to minister together through the pages of this forthcoming book, Man and Woman in Biblical Unity, Theology from Genesis 2-3.
Yours Tru-ly,
Bruce C. E. Fleming, DEA
Tru316 Foundation (Tru316.com)
We’ve been encouraged along the way. See Tru316.com/testimonials. Notice the accompanying pictures. One is from the Bare Marriage Podcast where I was interviewed by Sheila Wray Gregoire. The other is our picture taken at the Launch Event of the Tru316 Foundation on March 16, 3/16 Day where we hosted Dr. Jeannine Brown of the NIV Update Committee as Keynote Speaker.
