Ryan

Yes, the NET Bible Translation notes unfortunately favour the interpretation of ruling the husband, but the commentaries of Welsey, Gill and James, Fausset and Brown (JFB) don’t seem to infer that she was looking to have authority over her husband (after all, she did offer him the fruit — if she had bad intentions, wouldn’t she have kept it to herself?). Wesley says, “She is here put into a state of subjection: the whole sex, which by creation was equal with man, is for sin made inferior.” JFB write, “…her condition would henceforth be that of humble subjection.” Gill said, “…it should be liable to be controlled by his will, which must determine it, and to which she must be subject…”

The thing that really bothers me about every interpretation that I have seen thus far is that they all interpret these things as God cursing the man and woman. However, this is not the case. God curses the serpent in Gen 3:14 and the ground because of Adam’s rebellion in Gen 3:17. Otherwise, He merely says that He will increase Eve’s pain in childbirth and prophecies about Adam’s toil, Eve’s desire for her husband and Adam’s rule over her. Given that Eve had not yet had any children and din’t know the pain of childbirth, its hard to imagine that this is what God is speaking of. Perhaps what is meant is in reference to the heart and emotional anguish she would experience with the sin of her children — her first son was a murderer. After all, it is the mother who bears the children from her very own womb, breast feeds them and mothers them and so has a closer connection.

Your article is very well written, immediately engaging and a powerful argument.