Cheryl Schatz

Cindy K,

Good questioning attitude!  You said:

Ortlund seems to be saying that Eve set out with the willful intent to twist what God had said, as if she needed no encouragement from the serpent.  If that was true, the serpent would likely never have had to convince Eve with craft and subtlety with his “surely argument.”  All he would have had to have said was “Go ahead and eat,” and Eve would have followed the lust in her heart.

This is exactly how I read Ortlund as well.  At the point of Eve’s statement about what God said, there was no encouragement from the serpent to twist God’s words, nor is there anything in Eve that was an enticement to sin by distorting God’s word.  While all of us can have sinful desires because we are already sinners and are easily tempted to sin just because of the fallen humanity, we cannot make any of these assumptions about Eve since her nature at creation was not like our sinful nature.  If Ortlund is going to say that Eve’s thoughts were sinful or that she added to God’s word, which is a very serious sin, then he would have to give us reason for believing from the text his account of a pre-fall sinning Eve.  I see no evidence whatsoever except for his addition to the text.

You also said:

If I have a misconception about what the Word actually means, am I misquoting God?  I don’t think so.  That just makes me human.  It makes me very much like Eve was when she was trying to discern the truth.  She just discerned wrongly.

What evidence do we have that she discerned wrongly?  Eve said “God said…” and she gave his words.  If Eve had given her own understanding then she would have said, “God said that we are not to…”  By using the plural word “you”, this shows that Eve is not giving her own understanding but quoting God.  If we consider this passage as having the grammar inspired as it is written, then I think we can be confident that Eve was not giving a general understanding of God’s command since she would not be talking about herself by calling herself “you”.  The structure of the sentence is a direct quote.

The issue here is one regarding the extent of God’s words.  Let’s consider Jesus.  John wrote:

John 21:25  And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself *would not contain the books that would be written.

Does the Bible contain every single word that God spoke to people?  I propose that if it did and if they were written in detail, that our bible would be much larger.  I think most would agree that the few words that are recorded in the Genesis account are not everything that God ever said to Adam and Eve.  If so, then God created Eve and silently brought her to Adam without telling her anything about himself, or Adam or why he was taking her, or what she could eat, etc.  It appears from the account that hearing God walking in the garden was not a once-for-all-time event.  It would have been something that Adam and Eve did with God as they walked with God in fellowship in the garden.

The question would next be why are all the words of God not recorded?  The answer should be that we were given why God gave us for our good.  We do not need to know everything he said, but what he has recorded and given to us is for our benefit:

2Ti 3:16  All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness;
2Ti 3:17  so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

If the words that Eve quoted from God are not given to us in scripture except in the quotation provided by Eve, wouldn’t it be more reasonable to believe that God did speak to Eve and give her the command directly than to assume that Eve made a mistake or sinned and lied about God?  If Eve merely made a mistake, I would like someone to tell me how that happened?  We know that God did speak to Eve directly because Genesis chapter 1 says so, and if Eve could get a simple command wrong, then how was this simple-minded woman a “helper” to Adam?  It my own simple-minded understanding, it appears that Eve needed a “keeper” because she wasn’t able to retain a simple command without discerning the words of God and the twittering of the birds near by.  How could she be trusted to get Adam’s communication right?  Perhaps he should have picked the dog.  I am being silly here but I hear dogs are considered man’s best friend and they don’t mix up commands because they usually are quite bright.

My point is that man’s tradition looks right past a bright, articulate Eve and is quick to find fault with her testimony.  Yet it is interesting that God picks women as his first in line witnesses at the tomb and instructs them to give the witness to the disciples.  In this he trusts the women as true and dependable witnesses of Jesus.  If these early  Christian women who have sinful natures can be trusted with the most important news of all time – the resurrection – then why would we even consider that Eve got things wrong in the garden?  She didn’t.  And I maintain that there is not one piece of evidence that Eve made a mistake and misquoted God or that she got confused when she spoke to the serpent.  I maintain that her testimony is true and there is no evidence to the contrary.

As usual, if I am wrong, I welcome evidence to the contrary.  I do love logical reasoning, but I accept the inspired text.  If Eve somehow got it wrong when she spoke about God, then Eve would have been a perfect sermon example for Paul or Peter.  It is most interesting to note that neither used Eve’s words as an error or an addition to God’s word.  Now I ask my readers, why do you think this is?  Did Paul or Peter miss an opportunity to show how misplaced words can get people in trouble just as they got Eve in trouble?  Or is Eve never used as an example in this way because she told the truth?  What do you think?