Cheryl Schatz

I believe that the creation accounts have all the information that we need. 1 Cor 10:11 says that the things written were written for our instruction. If we needed more, more would have been written.

“It is possible the man taught the woman wrong.”

The prohibition was a simple command. There were not multiple trees to avoid but one tree with one fruit. If the fall of Eve was due to the man’s failure to communicate then man was created incapable of even leading in a small way. It would make man an incredible goof-up and I don’t believe that God created the male that way.

“It is possible the woman misunderstood.”

This isn’t possible unless the woman was created childlike and incapable of understanding a simple command. If she couldn’t even get a simple command right from Adam, then how could she be depended on to raise children and help Adam rule the world? She would be an albatross around his neck because he couldn’t trust her to “get” anything right if she messed up on a simple command. No I don’t think there is any evidence that the woman misunderstood. Neither God nor Adam claimed that she misunderstood the command. The only claim is that the serpent deceived her by his craftiness.

“It is possible that God gave the woman a different command from the man. FWIIW, I consider this the most likely, but I am not 100% sure.”

We already have documented evidence that God gave the command regarding what to eat in different ways and at different times. In Genesis 2 God spoke to Adam before Eve was created and told him what he could eat. In chapter 1 when God spoke to both Adam and Eve, God gave them additional things to eat and he encompassed the prohibition in the specific kind of fruit that they could eat. Since we can see that God gives his instructions multiple times (repetition is for our safety Paul says) and in different ways, we can be assured that the woman’s testimony about what God told her is true. I believe that this is the only proper conclusion to come to since God did not charge Eve with sin or stupidity or failing to obey Adam.

The difference between what Matt Slick does and what I do is that Matt Slick takes his presuppositions and makes them into facts. What I do is start with the documented facts and then rule out conclusions that do not match the facts. What is left is the conclusion that the documented facts leads to. If my view of the “facts” is wrong, I am always willing to be corrected. Yet I throw out conclusions that distrust the documented facts. For example I throw out the conclusion that Eve didn’t understand a simple command because there is no evidence for this, God created her one who has the gifts and abilities to provide assistance to the man in his areas of need. Such a one couldn’t possibly be a child-like one without a statement in scripture to tell us this. It just doesn’t fit the facts.