gengwall

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1. Where in Gen 3 does it say Adam ‘intentionally’ sinned. He is charged for ‘listening’ to his wife. This is ‘read into’.

I think we have a symantic disagreement only. Adam was not deceived. This we can agree on, yes? Therefore, when Adam ate the fruit he did it with full knowledge of the consequences. He knew he was going against God. He knewe he was “sinning”. One way to describe that is that he ate the fruit with “intention” to sin because he did indeed know it was against God to do so. But I am open to other word choices. The point is that Adam and Eve sinned from two starkly different standpoints in relation to the sin itself. This is what Cheryl is saying and what I find indisputable.

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.

Cheryl will have to respond to this one. I did not appeal to this part of her argument per se in my attempt to gather us together.

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.

I would strongly contend that Genesis 1 and 2 shows us something about how Adam and Eve interrelate. You seem to believe that the chapters have nothing to say about how they interrelate. Correct me if I am wrong. Going on my presupposition, the verses that convey relational insights – 1:27-28; 2:18, 23-24 – can only show one of two different kinds interrelatedness: equlity or hierarchy. Certainly, you can not show any hierarchy within these verses. I believe you have admitted as much. What astonishes me is that you don’t see equality in phrases such as “This [is] now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh”, “[the man] shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh”, and “I will make a ezer neged [helper/partner/companion/friend/ in front of] for him” to relieve his aloneness. Again, you seem to believe these words say nothing about how Adam and Eve relate to one another. I can;t wrap my mind around that position.

4. I am hesitant to understand if Cheryl believes that the ‘death’ that was promised from God was only physical or spiritual aswell.

I’m sure it was both, but I will let her answer.

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

My brief response is “so what”. Where does the bible say that order=hierarchy? I give a more detailed reponse to the order argument in this post on my blog: http://gengwall.blogspot.com/2008/09/equality-in-original-marriage-design.html. I don’t mean to start yet another debate, but you may want to read it and comment back here. My question to you would be, naturally, what do you make of the fact that the animals were created before man? (I know, or believe, that Cheryl contends the animals, at least in the garden, were created after Adam, but I suspect you do not agree.) And what do you make of all the figures in biblical history that were “created” (i.e. born) after people they subsequently were superior to? And what to you make of Jesus’ decree that “the last shall be first”? I ask those rhetorically. My point is that there is no universal biblical principal and no biblical teaching at all that says first in order means first in hierarchy.

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.

I fail to see what Eve’s “role” is then, unless it is secondary caretaker of the garden. But that certainly is not the type of “role” that ezer denotes. And again, I still fail to see how being caretaker over the garden makes Adam the authority over Eve. But I suppose this argument is what men often use when they demand their wives go out and mow the lawn while they sit in their recliner watching the ball game. Is that how you view Adam and Eve’s relationship? Of course, I know you don’t. So I still fail to see any hierarchy or authority even if I accept (which I do) that Adam was primary caretaker of the garden.

3. Adam is the only one who ‘names’ the animals. Likewise Adam ‘names’ his wife. That is a role Eve doesn’t have

Again – “so what”, and also not true. Eve names both Cain and Seth (at least), so she does have a naming role. I address this argument in the same blog post. Again, there is no biblical teaching that says naming something gives you authority over it.

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.

This takes us all the way back to your first point at the top of the post. I would tentatively agree that they are equally sinful. I don’t believe there are greater or lesser sins. But the standpoints from which their sin emerged are opposite. One was deceived and one was not. I don;t see how there can be any disagreement about that. And therefore to say that they both “rejected” what God said, while true on the surface, is not exactly equivalent in the details. There rejections were very differently motivated. At any rate, this has little to do with hierarchy, which is at the core of our discusision

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.

You correctly sense my disagreement. In the marriage relationship with His church, I do believe that there is equality. But as you suggest, I will leave that to another day.

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.

I am so glad you finished in this manner. I absolutely do accept that there are differences beyond the anatomically obvious ones between men and women (I’m not sure why you think otherwise). And I understand that this is a main point underlying the use of the term “complimentarian”. I don’t disagree with that at all. BUT, (warning, other shoe dropping) what of those differences is “superior” in one gender which justifies giving them authority over the other gender? That is the question posed when using the term “egalitarian”. Don’t believe the propoganda from paranoid complimentarians that all egalitarians are radical feminist “sameness” advocates. I have never heard anyone here make the “sameness” argument, and Cheryl in particular is a great advocate for our God designed differences (other contributors are less impressed with the differences and less convinced of their gender universality, but they admit differences beyond the outwardly obvious never the less). But the response to those differences remains – “so what”? How does that give one gender authority over the other?

One last point

” Frankly, if I look at this from a dramatic point of view…”

Nothing in the text makes us think it unfolded this way. Both their eyes were opened. They both made clothes to cover BOTH their shame. They both hid in the garden. Nothing in this makes poor little Eve sound ’shell shocked’. SO therefore it is most dinately NOT fitting to come to this conclusion why God spoke to Adam first. This comes dangerously close to saying that Eve didn’t infact sin. There is nothing innocent about sin. It is a rejection of God. I hope we can all agree on that. Being ‘decieved’ doesn’t make her innocent.

LOL – Like I said, this is me being “dramatic”. I make no claim that this is so. But I just get a feeling that Eve was still not quite all there. Two people can go into a battle and its aftermath and yet be in vastly different psychological states when it comes to the debriefing. Anyway, my point wasn’t that God talked to Adam first so that poor little Eve could get her wits about her. My point was that, regardless of Eve’s state of mind, it was Adam who knew what he was doing at the point he did it and therefore his undeception based sin was more egregious. Nothing I said could be construed to suggest Eve didn’t sin, as she was questioned in turn.