Cheryl Schatz

Mark,

You asked:

A note to everyone else- i am currently reading through ‘Discovering Biblical Authority’ and would be greatly interested in discussing issues in it with people- Cheryl should this be done on another blog?

I don’t have a problem with the discussion of male authority here, but I will be doing a post later on when I get back from Pennsylvania, on the issue of the male as a “covering”. You can post questions/answers on this post or wait until the “covering” one if you would like.

There is so much that has been said while I was gone (and I leave early tomorrow again!) that I am not sure I will be able to cover everything with the little time I have left. If I have time (or opportunity) in the hotel or at the conference I will contribute more.

Starting from the end and working backwards, Mark you said:

I am worried about the theology that Eve was just ‘decieved’ and Adam deliberately sinned. They both deliberately sinned! Eve quoted what God had said and yes she believed the lie, but she deliberate didn’t obey what God had said.

First of all, can we agree that the Bible is what tells us that Eve was deceived? Good! Next, she was not “just” deceived and the deception removes her guilt. She is still guilty of sin. However God looks on the heart and Eve’s motive for sinning was not the same as Adam’s. Adam sinned in a treacherous way by sinning with his eyes wide open. He knew at the time that he ate the fruit that he was disobeying God’s command.

Yet with Eve it was different. At the time that she ate she fully believed that there was no command that brought death. She believed that God was just directing them away from the fruit that would make them equal with God. She no longer believed God meant the command because she was deceived. By being deceived, Eve now believed that what she was doing was a good thing and not a disobedient thing. Adam on the other hand was not deceived and he knew that he was acting in a willful, disobedient and rebellious way. Did Eve “deliberately” disobey God? No. She no longer believed that there was a legitimate command or a legitimate consequence. Does this make sense?

You also asked:

This has major results on the banishment aswell. If Eve only ‘followed’ Adam and was not banned, what are we to make of sin? The garden was God’s presence on this earth. God cannot tolerate sin, therefore if Eve sinned, there is no way she could have been allowed to stay in the garden. This is a contradiction of what we know about the character of God who cannot tolerate sin.

Losing the garden was not why God kicked Adam out of the garden. The text doesn’t say that God didn’t want Adam to have the garden as his home. It says that God didn’t want Adam to eat from the tree of life so that he wouldn’t die. What about God’s toleration of sin? First of all He talked to both Adam and Eve after they sinned, didn’t He? He could tolerate the sinners in doing that. Whether He would walk with them in the garden after sin is another issue. But the text explicitly tells us why Adam was kicked out and it had nothing to do with the garden and Adam’s home. It had everything to do with Adam rebelliously disobeying God’s no longer allowing Adam to eat from the tree of life. This was the issue.

Since Eve did not deliberately disobey God and since God knew her heart and since God did not ascribe rebellion to Eve, it is apparent that God was not concerned that she was the one who would deliberately disobey Him by going against the second prohibition with would be the eating from the tree of life. The fact is that the rebellious one was the only one kicked out.

It is dangerous to suggest the quality of sin was different between Adam and Eve and in my view this simply is coming because the egalitarian position doesn’t fit with the bible.

The Bible is what tells us the difference between deliberate and unintended sin. I don’t have time right now to find the scriptures for you, but I suggest that you check out the Old Testament and the difference between “unintentional” sin and sinning with a “high hand”. Then I suggest you also check out 1 Timothy 1 where Paul gives the reason for why he received mercy. There is absolutely no doubt that God makes a difference between a deceiver and the deceived.

Likewise suggesting that ‘knowing good and evil’ is somehow related to Adam’s deliberate sin and not related to Eve, is a big stretch i am unwilling to make.

Let’s be Biblical here, okay? The Biblical term is “deceived” and “not deceived”. Because Adam was not deceived (see 1 Timothy 2), his knowledge of the lie puts him in a different category than the one who has been deceived to see “the lie” as the truth. It doesn’t make the consequence any different as they both died, but it does make a difference in the curse. God did not curse anything because of Eve’s actions, but God did curse the earth because of Adam’s actions. If God sees a deliberate act of rebellion and a silent watchman who watches his wife being deceived, as acts that are more serious and deserve further punishment than the act of a fully deceived person who has walked into the trap because her eyes are blinded, then we need to believe God and not rely on our own understanding.

I see what some here are suggesting that poor Eve was innocent in her sin. Sin is not innocent. It is a deliberate act to go against God.

No one is saying that Eve is “innocent”. All we are saying is that the Bible says that she was “deceived” into sinning. It was a “deliberate” act of satan’s to deceive Eve. Eve did sin against God. However in her sinning, the Bible says that she was deceived into the transgression and I simply believe the Bible.

She was equally guilty, equally banished.

This is not true. God never said that Eve was guilty of treachery. He did say this about Adam. God also never said that Eve was banished from the garden. To assume this action when Eve had not acted in rebellion is to assume evil when the Bible does not attribute this evil to Eve.

We are treading on dangerous ground when messing with the doctrine of sin and its introduction into the world.

No one is messing with the doctrine of sin. We both believe that sin entered the world through Adam. The issue is not “what” by “why”? I believe that the Bible is clear on why Eve did not equally bring sin into the world. It was because there was only one in rebellion and there was only one in deception.

Let me ask you some questions, Mark. Where does the Scripture say that Eve was kicked out of the garden? Where is Eve said to have sinned with treachery? Does the Bible ever say that Eve brought sin into the world?

The fact that God deals primary with ‘the man’ can only be understood as his function as the ‘head’ of the family.

The Bible never makes the man as the only “head” of the family. Ephesians 5 shows that the woman is also the ruler of the home. The fact that God dealt with both the husband and the wife defies the logic of the man alone as the “head”. If the man was the one responsible only because he had a “function” of responsibility, then not only should God have told us this, but God should not have addressed the woman at all. Also God should have asked Adam about his wife. Why did God not address Adam about his wife’s sin and ask Adam to be responsible for her sin?