Gazza

Hi Cheryl
Thanks for posting this topic it has helped me to understand where you are coming from more fully. I was only away for a couple of days but there has certainly been a lot of talk on this topic in between!

I still have a couple of questions though:

Firstly I understand what you say about the first useage of pain in verse 16 being toil and the logic that this is to do with a shorter lifespan and more babies. The second useage you still seem to interpret as physical pain – “she will still desire her husband in spite of the pain that having his children will cause her” My question is how can a just God inflict this pain on Eve if she is indeed innocent. If she is not innocent as your statements in an answers to Mark might suggest #57 “I agree that Eve fell into sin through deception.” Then how is this pain not a punishment for her sin? – presuming that if she had not have sinned it would have been impossible for a just God to inflict pain on her.

You also make much about God judging between one sin and another – I agree with you that scripture clearly teaches that there is a disparity between sins. However, it is also clear that the consequence of any sin is severe – Leviticus 4 goes on to state that a life must be sacrificed for even an unintentional sin. How can Eve stay in the perfect garden when she no longer meets Gods standards? Surely this must be considered independently of whether Adams sin was worse than Eves – I believe that it was.

Finally I have a question of the nature of Eves deception. When Paul in Romans speaks of being deceived He was deceived as to the right way to act to please God. His persecution of Christians was an ill-informed zeal. Eve here is not deceived in how to please God – she clearly knows she is not to eat the fruit – Eve is deceived into thinking there will be no negative consequences if she does eat the fruit and that it was desirable for gaining wisdom. It would seem to me that this deception occurs despite her previously knowing what was right – if you are correct then God Himself had already told her that she would die if she merely touched it. Eve is deceived into trusting a serpent more than God. I can not see any evidence in the text that her motivation was to please God (unlike Paul) rather it is a selfish ambition to be “like God, knowing good and evil.” Is it really fair to say that Eves sin was so much less than Adams because she was deceived that she was still entitled to stay in the garden? Surely what she was deceived to believe and do was still an affront to God?