gengwall

I view Gen.3:16 in a different manner – that it is not only a marriage predictive, but predictive of human relationships.

Fair enough, but that still leaves the question: is it telling us only what is bad about males in human relationships and only what is good about females? That would seem quite inconsistent since “all have sinned”.

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.

It seems you have missed my point. I belive that Gen 3:16, in part, is telling us that all males will be inclined to rule. That doesn’t mean they will all succumb to that fleshly inclination. As I have said here many times, I constantly feel that sinful pull on me to “rule” over my wife, but I fight it. God isn’t telling us what will ineveitably happen to every man, He is telling us what the male nature will be.

Now, it seems logical to me that God is also telling us what the female nature will be. But in context, in the midst of God’s chastisement of the two humans, in the midst of curses and future consequences, in the midst of a passage where God has nothing good to say to anybody except the promise of the coming Messiah, I have a hard time believing that God wants to discuss only the future good inclinations of females in comparison to the future bad inclinations of males. It makes no sense.

Perhaps this would be a test of the second witness rule.

This is not a law, nor is it human testimony. Does God need a second witness to proclaim to mankind how mankind will behave under the influence of sin? I don’t think so.

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?

I think you are implying that there is. It is true that patriarchy is the dominant institution in the OT, but it isn’t protrayed as negative. So I don’t think you can claim this as a witness to Gen 3:16. It isn’t until the NT that men are portrayed negatively for domineering “rule” and given a new command in relation to their wives – to “love them as Christ loved the church” and “to live with them in an understanding way”.

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?

And I think you are implying here that there is not. Although I would disagree on the face – there are plenty of bad women in the OT and “feminine wiles” are constantly warned against – I also don’t think this is necessarily a witness to Gen 3:16. As I have often said, biblical history is not biblical teaching. Again, I think we need to turn to the NT to see commands to women that turn them from sinful actions toward their husbands. We see such commands in the same passages as those tot he husbands. Here women are told to “submit” and “respect”. You may refuse to recognize a connection with Gen 3:16 in these instructions, but again that leaves us with this very lopsided testimony:

Gen 3:16 tells us what is bad about men, and Eph 5 and 1 Peter 3 tell men how to correct that problem; but Gen 3:16 tells us what is good about women and the parallel instructions in Eph 5 and 1 Peter 3 have nothing to do with any of that.

As I have stated, I just don’t buy that scripture is that disconnected.