Was Eve Mistaken

Without the text offering an evidence that she was mistaken (or anything else) I have to question why would any think she were wrong? In other words, where does such an idea come from? It has to come from some where. There has to be a reason why one would doubt her testimony to begin with. And if the scriptures are not the source of the doubt and not the source which gives us any idea of such a thing, then what is the source? If the text itself does not give us this idea in any shape or form, then why is it even considered at all? What we can take from the text of scripture is only what it gives us but if we leave the text ‘with more’ then what it gives us, then what have we received and from where?

Pinklight,

In my opinion, the all-out failure to believe Eve’s testimony comes from a battle.

Gen 3:15  And I will put enmity Between you and the woman…

God said that he is the one who would initiate a fight between the serpent and the woman.  I believe the enemy has done everything he can to hold back women, subjugate them and stop them from prophesying and testifying for God.  The idea that we shouldn’t believe the testimony of a woman (even the very first woman before she sinned and ate the fruit) in my opinion, is a symptom of the battle against the woman.

I’ve heard it claimed by comps, Bruce Ware for example that the woman was taught the command by the man. That is what Bruce Ware claims. While this unwarranted claim is made, it is also claimed by comps that she ‘got it wrong’, not the man in his teaching her, but she did, in her response to the serpent. So in conclusion not only does God not speak to the woman about his prohibition, but she also could not get it right even when taught (by man).

But if the man did not teach the woman in the garden, then why is it claimed that women can not teach men but only men can teach womenwhile what is not found in Genesis is that the man taught the woman in the first place? If it’s not a foundational teaching of Genesis, (and it’s not) that man is to teach woman then where does the teaching that only men should teach doctrine come from? Does it come from Adam’s silence? This is more reason why her testimony is important in contrast to the man’s silence.

If the woman can testify to what God HAS said in Genesis then she is not the woman that tradition has made her out to be.

‘Gen 3:15  And I will put enmity Between you and the woman…
God said that he is the one who would initiate a fight between the serpent and the woman. ‘

I agree.

13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
 14 So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,

“Cursed are you above all the livestock
       and all the wild animals!
       You will crawl on your belly
       and you will eat dust
       all the days of your life.
 15 And I will put enmity
       between you and the woman,
       and between your offspring  and hers;
       he will crush  your head,
       and you will strike his heel.”

Because the serpent did what? What’s ‘this’? What did the serpent do? The serpent did not deceive Adam into eating, he ate willfully. But he deceived the woman and she ate. She went from having the truth to being deceived by the serpent, and being deceived is why she ate and for that God puts enmity between them.

“Joel 2:28  “It will come about after this That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and daughters will prophesy, Your old men will dream dreams, Your young men will see visions.”

And Peter, under the power of the Holy Spirit, repeats this at Pentecost. This, to me, is proof of woman being able to preach. Of course, I have been told this was JUST for that day…Pentecost. I believe it is for the church age.

Lin,

In the New Testament the Spirit was poured out upon the church and He was given to stay with them forever.  There is nothing in scripture that would say that the Spirit was taken away from women.  And if this was so, women would not have the spiritual gifts at all.  No, when the Holy Spirit came, He opened women’s mouths and sadly it is enemy who seeks to shut women’s mouths.

Pinklight,
There is so much said by hierarchists that we have just taken for granted.  They are not in the scriptures but they are accepted beause they have been taught over and over and over so that they are tradition without any kind of solid foundation in the bible.  It is time for us to test these traditions instead of accepting them and using these traditions to silence women.  There simply is not one thing in the creation account that shows Adam teaching his wife.  She is taught by God Himself.

Pinklight,
You are also right in that God cursed the serpent because he deceived the woman.  Yes, it was God who initiated the enmity between the serpent and the woman.  So it is the serpent who attacks the woman, but the woman also goes to battle against the serpent.  In the history of the world it is to be noted that females have been discriminated against.  In many areas female babies have been left to die.  Females have had their genitals mutilated and they have been forbidden to think for themselves as they have been forbidden education.  It has been an all out war.  Why would God initiate this war?  I think it is because he has a plan to use women in the spiritual battle in a very powerful way against the serpent.  When we hold women back from using their spiritual gifts, we hold back part of what God has gifted for the attack against the enemy.  May we never sideline our fighters when the battle is raging.

Cheryl,

I like the way you pose a series of questions just like a series of hypotheses, and then test them with scripture.

Too much of what has gone on in the past, and has indeed been passed off as sound theology, is nothing more than extrapolation into thin air.

Scripture testing scripture is what you’ve always taught here on your blog, and for that many of us are indebted.  If it ain’t in the text, don’t try to import it in, or build it on-site.

On the other hand, what does one do when observed reality seems to contradict scripture?  For example, Luther once took Copernicus to task over the then heretical concept of heliocentrism (earth revolves around sun), saying:

“So it goes now.  Whoever wants to be clever must agree with nothing that others esteem.  He must do something of his own.  This is what that fellow does who wishes to turn the whole of astronomy upside down.  Even in these things that are thrown into disorder I believe the Holy Scriptures, for Joshua commanded the sun to stand still and not the earth [Jos. 10:12].”

Pinklight #4 ~ I used the illustration above (Luther on Copernicus) to show that there exists a wide gulf between figurative Hebrew poetry used to drive home a deeper truth (God’s sovereign power) vs. a  literal mechanical truth (sun orbiting earth).
In the case of God putting enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman, I believe that God allowed the hatred to germinate and become a malignant fungus vs. an actual mechanical decree.  Why? because the very next verse (v16) when understood in context is also descriptive vs. prescriptive.

Greg,
Thanks for your comments!

I always thought it was ironic that the one whom the deceiver deceived would be the very one through whom the Messiah would come.  So the deceiver will be destroyed by the seed of deceived.  God has a way to turn everything around and bring good out of bad.

There really is so much more underneath the tradition that we have been taught.  We are corrected by the text itself.

Those nasty egals are advancing cuz they cheat! How can we get them to cheat less?

Give me a break!  When someone writes this type of non-argument, it means they have no better arguments.  What do the non-egals do?  They suppress dissent.  So they see this as what egals do.

I think it is important to see that what the woman says God said contains an ambiguous or partial truth.  There were 2 trees in the middle of the garden.  Which one is she referring to?  If she is quoting God, which one is God referring to?

And the important question is: Would God declare a sin of commission in an ambiguous way?

Here is just some thoughts I have for right now, that I am sharing.

Don said:
‘I think it is important to see that what the woman says God said contains an ambiguous or partial truth.  There were 2 trees in the middle of the garden.  Which one is she referring to?  If she is quoting God, which one is God referring to?
And the important question is: Would God declare a sin of commission in an ambiguous way?’
The serpent did not ask about the 1 prohibited tree. So when the woman responded to the serpent saying ‘the tree in the middle of the garden’, how did the serpent know which one she was talking about, if there were 2 in the middle? Did the serpent think she was talking about the tree of life?

Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. And the LORD God made all kinds of treeS grow out of the ground—treeS that were a) pleasing to the eye and b) good for food. c) In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is c) in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”
“You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was b) good for food and a) pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

Wish I could read Hebrew! Is there something I cannot see because I cannot rely on translation?

In 2:9, the order is a) pleasing to the eye then b) good for food and then c) in the middle, but in Gen 3, through the woman ‘the order’ is backwards. c) in the middle, then b) good for food and then a)pleasing to the eye.  BUT thing is, the fruit of the tokogae was NOT b) good for food (see 2:9) no matter how she eventualy saw it. We know this because God gave them both while together what was good for food in Gen 1, fruit with seed. God gave them that which was good.

Which trees grew out of the ground? Ones that were a) pleasing to the eye and b) good for food. What was truley pleasing to the eye and good for food? Trees that grew out of the ground, not the fruit of the tokogae.

I am reposting some text from above, as it seems it might have been missed.

I think it is important to see that what the woman says God said contains an ambiguous or partial truth.  There were 2 trees in the middle of the garden.  Which one is she referring to?  If she is quoting God, which one is God referring to?
And the important question is: Would God declare a sin of commission in an ambiguous way?