Cheryl Schatz

Mark,
You said:

With the flow of the passage i struggle to see this. Eve’s ‘talking to’ falls directly under the curses of the serpent. However before God issues the curses in relation to Adam there is disruption in the flow where God address’ Adam for listening to Eve. So it is sensible to see why God has to re-address the use of the word ‘curse’ It seems hard to me to seperate the flow of the chapter between the serpent and Eve. What is discussed with her fits snuggly into the flow of the chapter and the curse of the serpent. Perhaps someone can show me in the text why we should make this seperation. Is there any indication in the Hebrew that what is addressed to Eve doesn’t fall under the banner of ‘curse’ with the flow of the text.

I know the argument of it doesn’t say ‘curse’ with eve, but what i am asking is, is there any indication in the Hebrew to seperate the 2

Yes there is indication in the Hebrew and in the English. The separation in the text is God’s direct words to each individual. God speaks to each “sinner”. The serpent is told that he is cursed and the curse is directly related to what he has done. “Because you have done this…” God said. Adam is addressed and God deals with his sin and curses the earth because of what Adam did. God also deals directly with the woman. God does not deal with the woman through the man. He deals with her regarding her sin and her claim to having been deceived. He accepts her claim and he curses the serpent without a word from the serpent. He gives a prophesy to the serpent but related to the woman that her seed he will be destroyed. God gives no prophesy to the man and God gives no positive outcome that would come from the man.

The verses are broken up into the persons whom God spoke directly to and nothing can break this “flow”. One cannot bring a curse on the woman because of God’s curse on the serpent. God brought a blessing through the woman, not a curse. She would bring the Messiah and the Messiah did not come through a cursed human being.

Later when Adam names Eve, he admits by naming her that she is the mother of all living. Adam on the other hand is father of all the dying. Through Adam we did. Through Eve and her seed we live. When we treat Eve as equal in sin with Adam we will fail to see that God’s mercy came through her and her seed while Adam’s treachery brought sin into the world. If Adam and Eve’s sin was the same, then there cannot be any reasonable explanation for God treating them differently. After all are we willing to say that had Adam as Eve’s “head” sinned and she had not, that Adam’s sin would have been imputed to her? Eve was not “in” Adam when he sinned so Eve could not have had sin put on her account because of Adam.

I hope this helps. The issue of the authority of the man is a very important issue. I will be dealing with this as soon as I can when I am back at home. I will deal with the man’s authority in the issue of the man’s “covering”. I think it will be a very interesting discussion and I sure hope that you stick around Mark. I would love to have you participate.