pinklight

Hi Mark,

I am not saying that it is not theoretically possible that God gave a new prohibition to Adam and Eve. As i quoted Richard Hess, we don’t know.

But I thought that you said it’s “far safer” to go with the text we have? Eve’s testimony of God giving a different prohibition (though not a contradictory one) would be the text we have would it not?

My point though is quite simple, we do only have 1 recorded prohibition given to Adam only, therefore exegetically this is the prefered option. Yours (and Cheryl’s) relies on speculation rather than biblical proof. It is safer therefore to go with what we have, not with what we don’t have.

No, we also have the prohibiton given to Adam in Genesis 1. The prohibiton is encompassed in the permission to eat of more food because what’s he’s given in Gen 1 cannot contradict what he was already prohibited from in Gen 2. Different doesn’t mean contradictory.

We have food given to Adam to eat along with a command, the permission given to both of them to eat, and the woman’s testimony of God’s command. That IS what we have. It’s speculation to say that any of what we do have is not true. All are true but you are speculating that the woman’s testimony is false without anything to support the claim. That Adam, before woman was created, was given a command that Eve wasn’t doesn’t support a thing against her testimony since one does not contradict the other. You are only taking some of what we have and leaving off the rest – her testimony.

If Eve was correct in quoting God, why don’t her and Adam die when they ‘touch it’?

If you want to get technical, though I don’t think the intent of the author was to mean that when they touch it, that their touching of it would cause them to die, especially without also eating it since that’s what the text says anyway – touch and eat then die – then looking at Gen 3 technicaly combines their death with not only eating the fruit but also touching it. The author makes it a point of when BOTH TOUCH it and only then were their eyes opened. Notice the author doesn’t leave off that they both “touched it”.

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and 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. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened,

The text explicitly states that their eyes are open after they ‘eat it’ and this is when they die, which is exactly what is for-warned by God to Adam in Gen 2. I hope you have an answer to this one?

The text explicitly includes the fact that both touched the fruit and ate and THEN their eyes were opened. The author could have left out this detail and only wrote about their eating of the fruit but instead he made sure to include it.

Why does Eve ‘covet’ for the fruit? All these little details are important.

The author made sure to show us when she became deceived and it was at the point that she saw the fruit as good for food. This is the point in time where the author lets us in on what’s going on in Eve’s mind. She has now become deceived because of the way she now sees the fruit. There is NO evidence before her perception changes that she was deceived when she was answering the serpent’s question about the garden trees and defending God’s command that was given to both of them.

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.