Cheryl Schatz

Craig,
You said:

1. v 12 seems to read primarily as a prohibition for the wife, rather than a prohibition on the husband’s silence.

Correct.

2. v14b doesn’t refer to Eve so the argument from Adam and Eve must come primarily from Adam.

However verse 13 does refer to Eve in conjunction with Adam and the comparison here is one who is deceived to one who is not deceived.

Since Paul is referring back to the Biblical account of the fall we must ask what was God’s “take” on the issue of Adam’s non-deception? Was it a good report or a bad report? We will find the answer in Genesis 3:17.

So I thought I would try relating Adam to the prohibition on the wife (rather than relating Adam to the husband and Eve to the wife as is usually done). I thought it may be possible that Paul was just appealing to the fact that Adam learned and therefore wasn’t deceived, rather than looking at the terrible thing Adam did with his lack of deception.

Good for you for thinking outside the box! That is a valiant way to try to work through the passage. The question though at the end of the day will be what is Paul’s “take” on Adam? Is it a good review or a bad review? What is the evidence?

We know that Adam was taken the blame for the entire fall and this is evident through the writings of Paul, agreed? Would Paul now give Adam a break and commend him on his knowledge?

The Scripture shows us that there is such a thing as a dead faith. Faith that is “dead” is faith that has no practical evidence so that what is claimed is unfruitful. If we put Adam to the test, would we not have to say that his knowledge was a “dead” knowledge since he did not take it out of its sheaf and use it as a sword to fight the enemy?

Paul wrote in 1 Timothy 1 that he used to be a violent man, a persecutor and a blasphemer but he did this ignorantly in unbelief. Would Adam now be given mercy and be considered acting ignorantly in unbelief so that he is now set up by Paul as the good example while his deceived wife is set up as the bad example? Think this one through because it is quite important to Paul’s point. Is this really what Paul is saying? How could we know for sure?

Then look at verse 15. Is there something that is set up for the man that must change from what he is doing now? If he is the good example like Adam, then why must he do something different?

I think you are correct and it is probably a silly idea. If Paul wanted to find an example of non deception through learning Adam would probably be the last one to pick. Oh well… I’ll keep trying.

No, no, no! It isn’t a silly idea. This is the way that we think these things through. The more you practice to pick these Scriptures apart and look at them from every possible angle, the more your eyes will be opened to what God wants to say through the text. These are very hard passages. They will take thinking like you are doing to work through them. And when you are done looking at all the angles, you will know that you know what isn’t the truth and often just by a process of elimination, you will find what is remaining is the truth.

Keep up the good work! I love to see independent thinking and reasoning through the Scriptures. When you continue to practice this testing everything by asking who, what, where, when and why, you are going to be able to understand these hard passages for yourself.