Cheryl Schatz

Mark,
Again you misrepresent me. You said:

Cheryl believes that although Eve’s quotation of God’s words was a direct command given to her only, since Adam had already been told what not to eat (Gen 2:17), it is therefore her opinion that Eve did not ‘misquote’ what was already given to Adam.

While I believe that God spoke to the woman before He brought her to the man, since the woman used the plural form, it is apparent that the quote from God was made during the time that they were both together. I take this because of the inspired words. The woman said “you” plural.

Problem-
1.we only have I recorded instance of God’s command not to touch the tree of knowledge. This was given to Adam only (Eve was not created). Therefore the question is raised, how did Eve know. Either Adam told her or God told her. Since we have no recording of God speaking directly and only to Eve, it is far safer to go with the text we have. It is better to assume that Adam told Eve the prohibition not God.

The problem with this is that it is pure speculation on your part. But on my argument, I don’t use speculation, but I use the words that the woman spoke assuming that she was not lying. She said that “God said…” It is her testimony. I haven’t seen why you do not believe her except for the fact that it goes against your own belief. That isn’t good enough for me. We need to work with the text and not ignore it. Right? Since there is nothing said by Eve, God or Adam that Adam told Eve about the prohibition, the only evidence we have who told her is the woman’s testimony itself. That is good enough for me. Why is it not good enough for you?

You said:

Therefore we conclude that Eve did not quote the prohibition correctly. She dropped ‘any’ from “we may eat from the fruit of (any) tree in the garden… This is an important omission since it already shows that God seemingly isn’t as generous as he first was.

There is no evidence at all that this is an omission. The woman was not quoting from what God said to Adam as the plural “you” shows quite clearly. To think that God’s words to the man and the woman were the only words that He spoke to them about anything at all really is naive. The words of Jesus in the NT are not the only words either that He spoke. I have not met anyone yet that thinks that God never spoke a word to Adam and Eve except what is recorded. Do you honestly believe this?

I have already given all the evidence why Eve told the truth in the post where I link to my youtube clips that go through all of this. See the post here http://strivetoenter.com/wim/2009/10/31/women-on-trial/

It is a serious problem to consider that Eve either lied or misrepresented God. God, Eve and Adam never indict Eve for lying or misrepresenting God and for anyone to charge Eve with this sin will have to prove that she was in error without just presuming their own point of view.

Next Eve adds ‘neither shall you touch it’ which is not in the recorded account we have of God’s actual words.

Again, Eve isn’t quoting God’s words to Adam. Did you not read chapter one where God gives them more food to eat than God gave to Adam at his creation? Can you not agree that God can add information any time that He wants to? If God has no freedom to do this, then what is your proof that He cannot add to either the prohibition or to his permission?

This too is important for it now shows that God is crueller than before.

The problem with this, Mark, is that you are assuming your view without proving that Eve sinned by misrepresenting God. The fact is that we do have an account of God saying these words. The account is in the testimony of the woman. Why is it that you cannot accept her testimony? What makes an innocent woman without sin now telling lies and making God seem to be “cruel”? The fact is that it is the serpent who made God cruel, not Eve.

So the serpent’s crafty question has begun to make Eve believe that God first of all is ‘stingy’ and second of all he is a harsh God, not even being allowed to touch the fruit.

You have to impeach Eve of gross sin before you can claim that Eve’s words were not truth.

Mark, could you please interact with the proofs that I gave for why Eve could not possibly have lied? It doesn’t help to assume that she did not tell the truth and go from there. Where did God call Eve a liar?

Now we know that it wasn’t the ‘touching’ of the fruit that caused the fall but the ‘eating’, (Gen 3:6-7) which is precisely what is predicted in Gen 2. So Eve was not correct by telling the serpent they couldn’t even touch it.

It was the eating of the fruit that caused them to die, but they were also forbidden to touch the fruit per Eve’s testimony. If you believe that Eve did not tell the truth, then why did God ignore this sin? Is it a practice of God to ignore sin? What do you say?

Also there is another problem with Cheryl’s view namely that during God’s judgement on Adam God directly refers to the dialogue between himself and Adam in chapter 2. God said “of which I commanded YOU, ‘you shall not eat’. This is not said to Eve because God didn’t give her the direct command.

Since God was talking to Adam alone at this point, He could refer to the command He gave to Adam alone. That was His choice. If you say that “God didn’t give her the direct command” then you are saying that Eve is a liar. Are you allowed to charge her with sin when God did not charge her with this sin?

The blame here is given to Adam as the one given the prohibition but who worse than Eve, still rejected it. Therefore we must conclude that God did not give a new command to Eve, or even if he did give one to both (see below for reason)Adam is still held as the major responsible partner.

This is arguing from silence. You cannot argue that God did not give additional information to Adam and Eve about the prohibition unless you can prove that God viewed Eve as a liar. It is highly important for you to deal with this sin and how God dealt with it. If you say that God didn’t deal with this sin because Adam was the major responsible partner then God shouldn’t have dealt with Eve’s sin at all. She would have been dealt with through Adam. It is a major flaw in your argument that you have God ignoring sin about the lies concerning His own words. That brings your argument down to a very weak point. Very weak. But the Scripture shows that God isn’t silent on sin and He will find those as guilty who add to His word.

It is not good enough to assume something into the text which can not be supported.

Then why do you do this? I have given the testimony of a reliable witness – a sinless Eve whom God does not charge with sin of adding to His words. What evidence do you have for her adding to God’s words? Only that there is no other evidence but Eve’s words. That isn’t good enough Mark, since God is also a witness who never charges her with sin.

An important note- egalitarians are not even agreed on this point. For example in ‘Discovery Biblical Equality’, Richard Hess said this “the reader never learns how the woman received the information that she cites to the snake”.(pg 89) If Cheryl truly believes that Eve was given a specific revelation she should be willing to stand up against other egalitarians to say that they are wrong.

I have done this many times. In fact the very first seminary prof that I shared this with said that he had never seen it before but had always believed the tradition. However after I shared it he could see that tradition didn’t make sense when Eve’s testimony is taken into view. He agreed that there is no evidence at all that she got it wrong or lied about God’s word. The biggest thing for him was that God never contradicted Eve or called her to account for this “sin”. Any many more egalitarians have seen the truth from Eve’s testimony. I encourage any egalitarian I meet to examine the evidence just as I ask you to examine “evidence” not conjecture. Eve’s words are evidence.

On to the next comment.