Paula

Ha! The security word is Adam! 🙂

Well, no “answer” has arrived yet. But I’ll go ahead and examine the rest of it.

Genesis 2 provides detail to the overview that is Genesis 1. Yet of course it does not negate ch. 1 but magnify portions of it. And in that first chapter we see a chronology, an order, a sequence of events– but nothing about authority until both male and female are created. Order, if equated with hierarchy, would make mankind the lowest life form. Yet no one can deny the supremacy of humanity over other life forms, so one could perhaps then see a reverse hierarchy in chronology. Yet that would put woman over man, since Eve was created last. PMS reacts to this, not by acknowledging either that there is no authority inherent in chronology, or that woman must be superior to man, but that hierarchy by chronology only applies between Adam and Eve! Yet the scripture clearly states, near the end of chapter one, that the only authority there is was granted directly and explicitly by God to both Adam and Eve over other life forms, not each other.

So as we enter chapter two we have only seen that God granted both male and female authority over other life forms. Then we are told that God placed Adam into Eden, having formed him from ground outside of the garden (a fact that will have significance later on). And the stated purpose of Adam there was to do two things: cultivate the garden, and protect it. And then we see God expressly state the prohibition against eating of the tree in the middle of the garden. PMS likes to emphasize the fact that Eve was not there to hear the command. But it conveniently forgets this point when the question of authority comes up. This is where the alleged “garden mandate” gets interesting.

If Eve did not yet exist when this “mandate” was given by God, then pray tell, how does it amount to a divine sanction of male over female? Who was Adam ruling besides lower life forms when no equal to him had yet been made? Where was the “family order” when only one human existed? And here’s another angle: Some teach that we all sinned “in Adam”, as “federal head”, citing Heb. 7:10 as establishing this principle. Yet if this is true, then was Eve not “in Adam” when God gave dominion over all the lower life forms? Was she not “in Adam” when God gave the “garden mandate”? Did Adam have rule over himself then, since Eve was “in him”? PMS can’t have it both ways. Either Eve was given the same mandate, or there was no “family order” set up before she existed. And if such order did not exist before Eve, then PMS will have to look elsewhere besides creation order for their alleged authority.

The Bible never tells us why God (not Adam) stated it was “not good for the man to be alone”. Every attempt at an answer is sheer speculation, and no one opinion is superior to another. But I suspect that if God had wanted us to know, He would have told us. At any rate, the fact is that Adam was in need, incomplete. This touches on the issue of being made “in the image of God”, in that such image is not dependent upon marriage. Those who advocate marriage as a necessary component of the complete image of God will have to deal with the fact that no one ever suggests Adam lacked this image before Eve, so it follows that Eve (or any woman for that matter) is not to be considered “incomplete” or of a lesser or merely reflected image of God on the basis of singleness.

So God creates Eve to be a strong companion, a rescuer of sorts. Never is she portrayed as an underling, secretary, slave, or auxiliary (I detest that term used for many women’s organizations!). She is strength to his weakness and thus completes him, not in the image of God, but in humanity. As Adam himself exclaimed, she is his own flesh and bone, of the same (equal) substance, unlike the animals God showed him earlier. Those animals were made from dust as Adam was, but Eve was made from Adam’s own flesh. Genetically, Eve was his clone! So where is superiority here? Scripture says no such thing. It speaks of strength, equality, and unity. It is only by imposing an unscriptural meaning for “help” that PMS can wedge hierarchy into this.

So there was no order for Eve to reverse, no hierarchy to usurp. Noplace in all of scripture ever even hints that Eve lusted after some imaginary position of power over Adam, and only ever speaks of her being the victim of deception. And though a victim, note that she nonetheless took responsibility for her actions: she “owned” the fact that she ate the forbidden fruit. Adam, on the other hand, dared not only to pass blame to Eve, but also to blame God Himself for her! He was a traitor to God and to Eve. Eve did not sneak around behind Adam’s back; he was there watching the whole temptation, per Gen. 3:6b. There is nothing whatsoever in that text or any other to suggest that Eve was focused on anything at all but the fruit and its being the key to unlock wisdom. She, the inexperienced one, was an easy target, and Adam completely failed to guard.

Many have claimed that Eve tempted Adam but that is a lie. They claim she lusted after Adam’s alleged authority, but that too is a lie. They assert that Satan tempted her because she would in turn tempt Adam, but that is another lie. Eve was the target because she, unlike Adam, never observed God’s creative power. Sure, that’s speculation too, but at least it doesn’t malign the character of Eve nor exonerate the character of Adam. Only Adam is blamed for sin, and with good reason. Genesis 3 makes it quite clear, without added footnotes or fine print, that Eve accepted the consequences for her sin while Adam turned against her and God.

While the serpent and Adam were told by God, “Because you have done this…”, Eve was not. And it was Adam, made from dust, who alone was driven out of the garden (3:22-24); it was due to Adam alone that the ground was cursed; to Adam alone is sin attributed (Rom. 5:12). A “steward of moral life”? I don’t think so.

“Chris” made the claim that Eve “opened herself up to Satan’s deception, ate the fruit, and fell into transgression”, yet what does the scripture say? It says the exact opposite: that only after the serpent tempted and deceived Eve did she consider eating the fruit. She did not “open herself up”, and Adam was standing there yet did nothing to prevent it. Deception is always given as the reason for Eve’s sin, not the result. After all, if she first of all lusted after power or fruit or whatever, that was her sin, yet scripture plainly states that her sin was in eating the fruit. For people who like order so much, PMSers sure are quick to ditch it when it suits them!

Now we come to the matter of the extent of Eve’s actions. We have seen that she was deceived, and that this only applied to her; it is never said to be a curse passed on to others. “Chris” tried to switch horses in midstream by implying that “now we all have to deal with the consequences of the fall” is ultimately the result of Eve’s actions, but scripture only ever lays the blame for the fall at the feet of Adam; it is never attributed in any way to Eve. If women are still prone to deception, then surely Adam is still passing the blame!

“Chris” then tries to make this all a permanent condition of all people when connecting it to 1 Tim. 2, as if we all suffer Adam’s “nature” but only women suffer Eve’s being deceived. Yet scripture never says any such thing. And then to claim, as “Chris” does, that “men in the church today are to be stewards of the gospel” is sheer fantasy. Where does the NT ever even hint as such an idea? 1 Tim. 2? Circular reasoning. If, as we’ve seen,

there is no hierarchy for Paul to refer to in Genesis, and
the whole topic of the letter to Timothy is stopping false teachers, and
the woman he mentions “has fallen into” sin due to deception,

then one can only claim Paul is mandating perpetual second-rate citizen status to all women by inserting hierarchy into the text he uses for his argument. So when we read Genesis we cannot presume hierarchy since that is the point under debate. And Genesis never hints at any rank or order between Adam and Eve until after she follows him when he alone is banished from the garden. Her legacy is not deception but oppression, while Adam’s is not only causing sin to enter the world but also keeping women oppressed. That is the root and cause of patriarchy.

It falls upon PMS to cite scriptural support for the claim that all women are prone to deception and to usurping an imaginary divine decree that puts male over female, a ranking by the flesh that has no place in Christianity. If they wish to continue labeling all women in this way even without scriptural mandate, then let them also accept the blame for all men being rebellious against God in a way that women are not, and for keeping women beneath them. Eve’s greatest blunder was to follow Adam instead of God, which is the core teaching of PMS today; they are actually encouraging women to follow Eve in this great error! And it is idolatrous to put any man in a place of spiritual supremacy or to usurp the place of Christ in a woman’s life.

“Chris” and all the other PMSers believe that they must restrain women “lest they fall into deception like Eve did”. Yet as we’ve seen, they have the order of events wrong in the first place, so their conclusions are in error as well. Lack of restraint has nothing to do with Eve’s deception, and Adam’s example, if it shows anything, tells us that men are completely worthless in this task! If “this responsibility for men has not ceased with Adam”, then neither has their inability and unwillingness to protect. Adam was the poorest guardian and thus the poorest role model for men.

Lastly, “Chris” actually argues that the only other way to keep women from deception is for them to “fulfill their role as women”, under “Adam”s watchful eye. (uh huh) Are only women supposed to “continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control”? Are they in sin if they fail in this, while men would not be in sin? Do they actually believe that a man is sinning if he does not restrain women and resist every effort for a Christian women to preach the correct gospel, teach, etc? No wonder they fight so hard to keep preeminence! And it’s all an elaborate house of cards they themselves made up.

What we actually read in Genesis is far different from the highly speculative assertions of PMS. They read their desired conclusions into the premises, putting more fine print into Genesis than there are actual words. They circularly argue that Paul must refer to Genesis to establish authority and then read that back into the context of 1 Tim. 2, completely ignoring the topic of deception, the specific grammar shifts between singular and plural as well as the continuing nature of sin of the woman at the time, and the actual words of Genesis. They ignore Paul’s letter to the Romans which lays all the blame on Adam and none on Eve, along with Paul’s expressed statements to even whole congregations that deception is hardly the sole domain of women (2 Cor. 11:3). They ignore scripture’s description of Adam as the rebel (Hosea 6:7, Rom. 5:14, 1 Cor. 15:45), not Eve. In short, they must ignore much scripture and replace it with their own in order to construct their argument.

I’m not impressed. And I will not, like Eve, follow any man “out of the garden” and away from my Savior. I have no other Priest, no other King, and no man emits any magical mystical covering to protect me, as if the Holy Spirit cannot do the job without their “help”. Pride in the flesh, especially that which puts the other half of humanity behind them, is the real sin.