Cheryl

Hey Kerryn,

Thanks for popping in!

Regarding others supporting this teaching, I have not found it in writing anywhere, but pretty much everyone that I have explained this to have agreed with it. It is one of those things where tradition has told us for so long that God only gave the prohibition to Adam and so we have accepted the explanation that Eve must have added to God’s word. I mean, surely God wouldn’t have spoken to the woman too, would he?

Ah, yes, believe it or not, the evidence is clear that Eve’s testimony is that God did speak to her too!

Last year I had the opportunity to speak about the logic of this teaching to a seminary prof. He was teaching a bible study that I attended and after the session he was discussing the sin of Adam and Eve with me. He stated that God only spoke to the man and that Eve added to God’s words. I asked him how he knew that. It was interesting to see the look on his face. It was like no one had ever asked him that question before and because of that it was a thought that had never entered his mind. He stated that this is what he had always been taught. I then asked him why Eve would lie and make up something that God had not told her? He agreed with me that if Eve added to God’s words that it would be a serious sin and that a sinless woman lying for no reason did not make sense when one thought it through. In the end he agreed that going through the passage with only the Bible, it was clear that Eve gave a true testimony about what God told her. Any other option would have charged a very serious sin to Eve.

The whole question that we need to work through is why have we so easily accepted the teaching that Eve added to God’s words when scripture nowhere says this? I believe that the answer to this question is that we have accepted the tradition that God favors men and that he only speaks his word through the man. This is a tradition that does not honor God because it charges God with partiality and favoritism.