Zwagmeister

Hello!

what an interesting blog.
i have spent several hours reading through your material today and really enjoyed it.

One question/comment though…
I am not sure about the “distinction” b/w Adam and Eve’s “sin”…
Sin is sin. Any sin separates us from God. (thank God for his grace to us all!) Once we start ‘judging’ sin into different categories i think we can get ourselves into trouble. Are you saying that if Adam had NOT eaten the apple, we would still be in the Garden?

i do believe that Paul is focussed on the issue of deception in 1 tim 2:11-15 (cf main theme of the letter) and this is why he stresses Eve’s story – because Genesis tells us she was deceived by the serpent (Gen 3:13). Another interesting thing – Eve immediately acknowledged her sin – she said to God “the serpent deceived me and i ate…” Interestingly, Adam on the other hand showed no repentence or admission of fault, but rather looked to palm the blame off on the one who he used to see as ‘bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh” (Gen 2:23)
1 Tim 2:11 is clearly about learning – the need Paul felt “a woman” had to learn so that she would not be deceived – like Eve. In fact my rusty greek tells me that it is learning (mantheo) that Paul is stressing with the one imperative in the entire passage.

I have studied just a little about Paul’s use of Adam in 1 Cor 15. Certainly there is no emphasis made of his ‘maleness’ in representing mankind. I believe that Paul clearly uses anthropos (rather than aner) or a pronoun that is not used in a way to specifically emphasise Adam’s maleness.. cf Rom 5:14 too) in every case. Adam was the first HUMAN created (and he just happens to have been male) is the way i read it. He is our representative because he was the one ‘through’ which all human life ultimately came. Could this not be the reason why transgression is laid at ‘his’ feet, rather than his sin being ‘greater’ than Eve’s?

(I am working on a research paper at the moment on Paul’s use of Gen 1-3 in 1 Cor 11 and 1 tim 2… so your discussion are right on track to get me into the ‘thick’ of all the debate!)

I welcome your thoughts?