Mark

gengwell,

i appreciate you attempt to resolve the issues above. It was very well written and easy to read. Obviously i disagree with your conclusion. Let me first start by critiqing and then giving my opinion.
1. Where in Gen 3 does it say Adam ‘intentionally’ sinned. He is charged for ‘listening’ to his wife. This is ‘read into’.
2. Cheryl’s literal approach has failed to recognise the great implications of sin, since she insists that Eve was not a ‘threat’ to the tree of life. I totally disagree with her doctrine of sin, and as such her analysis of the banishment is suspect in my opinion.
3 ALL the key passages for ‘equality’ have not been proven to show this. The’image of God’ has failed to be shown as equal. Adam’s exclamation of Eve really does nothing to promote total equality without distinctions of roles. The ‘one flesh’ verse is never used in scripture to promote the egalitarian view of equality.
4. I am hesitant to understand if Cheryl believes that the ‘death’ that was promised from God was only physical or spiritual aswell.

Now my view
1. Adam is made first, spoken to first, the primary recipient of God’s banishment. This creation ‘order’ is significant once we begin a looking at other passages. Paul most definately sees a creation order in 1 Cor 11
2 God give’s Adam the primary role of the ‘caretaker’ of the garden, and Eve is made as his helper. This does not contradict the mandate to subdue the earth, but fits with it. This is significant if we are going to see that God does actually designate ‘roles’, although we are equal in essence.
3. Adam is the only one who ‘names’ the animals. Likewise Adam ‘names’ his wife. That is a role Eve doesn’t have
4. Both are equally sinful by rejecting what God has said (there eyes were opened), and in Eve’s case listening to the serpent, and Adam listening to his wife.
5. The ‘one flesh’ verse is used by Paul to demonstrate the covenant with Christ and the Church. This is most definately not ‘equal’ as im sure we will discuss further on.
6. I think an obvious one we didn’t discuss is the physical differences. God coud have made babies any way he wanted, but he chose to make male and female different. Why can you accept that there are obvious physical differences, but God wouldn’t give other differences. This is contradictory to what we know about the different natures, emotions etc that men and women have.

What i am certain of is this. Both sides ‘read’ into the text to prove there points. I hope that you can all see this. This has been one of my main issues when egalitarians only claim that it is comps who read into texts. Ultimately we can never be 100% certain that our view is right- but what is more consistent with scripture is the key. I hope our furhter discussions reveal this.