Cheryl Schatz

gengwall,
I am so happy that you were just out “walking” for a time and planned to come back. I am certain that I am not the only one who would miss you 😉

You said:

Both Jesus and Paul refer to Genesis when specifically discussing marriage. Paul even refers to the fall in 1st Timothy 2 when specifically (in our egal view) talking about a married couple.

True enough but I don’t think that Paul was talking about their marriage relationship. I think he was talking about the first man who wasn’t deceived doing nothing about the first woman who was deceived. Deception was a serious problem in the garden just as it was a serious problem in Paul’s time.

And Gen 3:16 certainly is talking about the relationship between husband and wife. Just as Genesis 2:24 has been considered the “template” for godly marriage, Gen 3:16 has been considered by many (and I thought, everyone) as the “template” for marriage in a fallen world.

Well not every man is like Adam though there are more than enough who are to make the wive’s lives quite a challenge. The question of course is whether the words were meant to warn all men and women instead of just warning Eve.

Perhaps this would be a test of the second witness rule. Is there anywhere in the Scripture where we can use the “male rule” as a focus on the “norm” for marriage in the fallen world? And if there is one or more scriptures that would fit, where is the woman’s weakness listed where it is clear that there is a pattern and it is negative? It seems to me that as all of us are children of Adam and of his sin nature that we are all capable of having every bad character trait that there is – at least in theory.

It also seems to me that we should have more than one verse to build a solid doctrine on that foundation. I really don’t remember any other verses but perhaps they just never popped out at me. If anyone has verses that pertain to the fallen “norm” in marriage, I would be interested.