Cheryl Schatz

Lin,
You said:

Cheryl, Lets look at the facts:
-Eve DID follow Adam out of the Garden. That is a fact.
-Her first child was a murderer, that is also a fact.
-Only a few generations (long) generations later, the world had to be flooded because of terrible wickedness

Is the fact that Eve’s first child was a murderer her fault or was it the fault of her husband who passed his sin nature onto his son?

The continued state of affairs of mankind is stated in Scripture as our “old man” which came into the world through Adam. I really do not understand how you blame Eve for this.

Yet, what would have happened if Eve had not turned to Adam and stayed in the Garden? (After all, Adam was willfully wicked)

If Eve had not turned to Adam and had stayed in Eden, then the Messiah would have come through her and we would not exist. But was it a sin for her to leave and is it her blame that she kept her marriage vows and kept that one-flesh union even if he was a sinner? God never took back his command to fill the earth so why should she be to blame? If Eve was to blame then God was also be to blame for not killing Adam and creating a new husband for her to fulfill her part of filling the earth.

To deny that Eve shares blame in the outcome of her choices is to deny the facts in the Word.

The problem with this reasoning is that her choices were not sinful. It is like saying today that although we know for sure that our future children will have a sin nature, that we are sinful and to blame for producing these children. It just doesn’t follow through. Adam is the only one that the Bible blames for the condition of this world. Jesus is not to blame. Eve is not to blame.

But many are not; they know about us but hate us and call us names. They are in sin, oppressed or not, because idolatry is sin!

Yes! I couldn’t agree with you more! Women today are responsible for learning and understanding for themselves. They cannot give their mind over to their husbands and be blameless. The Bible is there so that they will not be deceived.

Turning requires both ‘toward’ and ‘away’, it is impossible to turn toward Adam without turning away from God. Eve surely regretted it later, but if you want to argue from silence, then you must allow it for others too.

This simply does not fit. God is not a “thing” that can be turned from without sin. God is omnipresent and turning toward your husband in leaving the garden cannot turn from a God who is everywhere. I am not arguing from silence since God Himself did not charge her with additional sin and the Scripture is clear that sin came into the world through one man alone. How do you explain a sinful Eve yet her sin has no effect on her offspring? How do you explain how sin came through only ONE man and not through one man and one woman?

That is a strawman answer, Cheryl! Bushnell never said that desire/turning was sinful in itself, but only derives its meaning (good or bad) from the context. You know that context gives the meaning!

This isn’t a strawman answer at all. You quoted her as saying that “the sense of the passage must be the same”. If the sense must be the same, then the sinfulness must be the same as that is the sense is it not?

Like I said, I respect Bushnell a lot and I understand what she was up against. However I do not agree with adding to the meaning of a word. What is the turning away from in the other passages if turning away from is always the sense? When sin wants to control Cain, what is sin turning away from?? Do you see how this doesn’t make sense in any other passage? That is because the addition of turning away is not in the meaning of the word. I agree that it could mean this if the context allowed for it and there is additional words that stated that. But there is no additional words that create a turning away from God. He is not mentioned in the passage at all or that she would be leaving Him. It is because that is not the context. God doesn’t dwell in the garden.