46 Charis,

I feel frustrated at having to keep repeating myself.

I am truly sorry for your frustration. I personally do not mean to offend you in any way and I can also sense your frustration. I do admit that I may not fully understand what you are getting at, but I also think that you may be misunderstanding me and reading into my writing more than I am saying. I sense that this is because you are deeply wounded and this is an area that you need to protect from receiving further wounding. Please believe me that I am not trying to hurt you or rub salt into any wound that you may have.

Its like you are seeing this in 3D and I see it in 4D. There is another dimension in the Garden that we DON’T HAVE ANYMORE.

Okay. I understand that you are trying to tell me that I am not seeing another dimension that you clearly see in Genesis. May I ask some questions to help me understand? If there is another dimension of marriage in the garden that we no longer have access to, how can we relate to that since we do not have access to it? How can we understand from the text that they had something different in marriage than what the best marriage here on earth does not have? Is this a feeling? Or is there something specific in the text that I have missed?

The man was NOT frustrated before the Fall.

Okay. So if I understand you right, the man had all the sexual desires of a normal male (since his desire was not increased after the fall) and the woman had much less desires than now, but the emotional/friendship/spiritual intimacy was good enough to replace sexuality and somehow made the intimacy they had impacted him enough so that he needed less sex than he needed after the fall. Is this what you mean? If this is so, is there anything in the text that would allow us to see that sexuality was not a healthy physical need in the garden but that friendship and the perfection of the garden were enough to satisfy everything that was needed? Also would it be reasonable to expect that God would not comment about the details about Adam and Eve’s private sexual lives either pre or post-fall? Would it also be reasonable to expect that Adam and Eve had more sexual encounters than the couple of times mentioned in scripture that resulted in a couple of noteworthy births? I think that it would be reasonable that the absence of the number of times per day/week/month/year that they had marital relations would not be expected to be in the biblical account to prove that they were a “normal” married couple both pre and post-fall.

Charis, I am not relating this to your experiences at all. I am not implying that you are not “normal” or that you are expected to be a one-sided giver and your husband a one-sided taker.

The intimacy they had was satisfying FAR BEYOND anything mere sex offered.

I happen to think that this quote is exactly what we will experience in heaven because in heaven we will not be married or given in marriage. But I just don’t see where you get this information from in the Genesis account regarding Adam and Eve’s relationship. It seems to me that you may be implying that the closer a couple gets to a perfect intimate relationship on an emotional level, the less they will desire a physical relationship. At least, this is what it seems that you are saying about Adam and Eve. While I can stand firmly with you regarding our new bodies that will be created after the likes of the new resurrected and glorified body of Jesus Christ, I do not see any evidence in the scriptures that the perfect bodies that God originally gave Adam and Eve which had all the plumbing for the experience of a completed physical relationship would have been there if the parts were not needed. Please do not get me wrong. I am not saying that their sexual relationship was the most important. I am just saying that I do not think that this part of their relationship was ignored because this would lessen the need for marriage. If this was so, I would think that God would have waited to marry them until they left the garden since their relationship in the garden would not need marital physical intimacy and could have been completely fulfilling as brother and sister or as two child-like humans exploring emotional relationships alone.

I still think you are imposing things on the text that aren’t in there. You make much of that when others do it and don’t seem to be willing to see it when you do it. You are IMPOSING frequent sexuality and your own experience of the centrality of that to marital intimacy. Its not in the text.

Charis, I didn’t realize that I did this. Where was it that I imposed “frequent sexuality”. What I intended to do was to show that the sexual relationship was part of the pre-fall blessing of their marriage in contrast to those who see sexuality as something not so much God-ordained but as a “necessary evil”. I also intended to reason through the issues of “increased desire” to show from my viewpoint that an “increased desire” implied a “lesser” desire pre-fall and with only one partner having their desire changed, it appears to me that this would make Adam and Eve quite a mismatch pre-fall. Well, either that or they are a mismatch post-fall. Perhaps there are other options that I haven’t thought through yet, but I think my conclusions have merit and logic to them even without my ability to see a fifth dimension in the account.

I feel some of the comments are misjudging me.

If this is something that I have done, I sincerely apologize. I do not mean to cause you pain nor do I mean to misjudge you.

Good and frequent sex does not a good marriage make- I know of what I speak.

I agree. I am not trying to put down the other wonderful ways that husband and wife bond with each other.

IF they had it (which you have convinced me they did on occasion), it was a nice perk (like chocolate to a child) but was NOT a centerpiece of the Garden experience. That experience was so far beyond sex and chocolate that Adam felt satisfied and so did Eve.

I am absolutely delighted that I was able to reason through the issue and convince you of this one thing. Thank you for telling me this because it makes me feel like I have done well in the one area of communication. I like that feeling.

As far as what was the centerpiece of the Garden experience, I believe that walking with God in the cool of the evening had to be the absolute centerpiece of their Garden experience. I believe that this was far more fulfilling to them than even their own experiences as husband and wife. Perhaps I am reading into the text from my own love of God, but that is what I believe. I could stand to be corrected though.

Your comment about sex and chocolate made me smile. My husband and I joined a Good Sams club here to get to know some of the people and the club members are all much older than we are. Every month there are comments about the things that elderly people do less frequently. I do not think eating chocolate is one of those things that is done less frequently. 😉

Charis, if there is anyway that I can communicate in a way that is less offensive, I would be willing to learn. I think that you are a precious contributor here and I do not want you to think that I am trying to paint you into a corner or try to fit you into a one-size-fits-all box. You are certainly one of a kind just like all of us are and together we are brethren in Christ.