Cheryl Schatz

Mark,

Regarding whether or not she knew the term Yahweh is insignificant. Of course she didn’t, that wasn’t known till God revelaed his name to Moses. But none the less, the writer of Genesis is using it in the early chapters of Gen, and the ‘Lord’ is dropped first by the serpent, then by Eve. You need to better to reconcile this than just dismiss that Eve didn’t know the term.

First of all, I need to note that Abraham did not have the OT Bible so Genesis had not been written so God indeed was telling the truth when He said that He did not reveal His name to him. However I was wrong to think that God couldn’t have revealed himself to Eve this way and Mark you have pointed out a verse that I had not paid attention to – Genesis 4:1. It is clear from the Scriptures that Eve did have God’s revelation about His name as she used it in faith believing God that He was indeed going to bring the deliverer through her. It is an amazing thing for some that God would reveal His name to a woman when He had not revealed Himself by this name to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Amazing that a woman got this revelation and yet they did not!

But what about her calling him only “God” when the serpent talked to her? Is this showing that she was taking the side of the serpent against God? Of course not. It is an invalid point unless you want to claim that Moses was also taking the side of the serpent.

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Gen 1:2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.
Gen 1:3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
Gen 1:4 God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.

“LORD God” doesn’t even show up until Genesis 2:4. Up until then Moses just calls him “God”. Moses was not aligning himself against God or for the serpent by calling God as “God” and since Genesis is fully inspired, God apparently has no problem in inspiring this name for Himself.

It would be reading into the account that Eve was against God and siding with the serpent just by her calling God as “God”. There is no charge of sin for this and it is completely invalid.

No, she misquoted God by introducing the words “and you must not touch it”.

There is no claim in the Bible that this witness misquoted God. In fact requiring Adam and Eve not to touch the fruit was demanding an act of faith on their behalf because in chapter 1 God gives them permission to eat from every tree that has seed bearing fruit. That means that if the tree of the knowledge of good and evil had seed bearing fruit, then they were given permission to eat from it. But since God told them that they were not allowed to eat from this tree then they knew that it must not have seed bearing fruit yet they must not touch it to test the fruit themselves. They had to believe God that this fruit did not have life within it without testing to see if that was true.

Tradition says that women are not to be trusted as witnesses but God not only made Eve a witness (she gave God’s command not to touch the fruit), He also made women the first witnesses of the resurrection. It is an amazing thing that we can accept the women’s testimony of the resurrection yet so many of us fail to believe God’s first witness. We have been taught that Eve either lied or that arbitrarily added to His word (which is a serious sin) without any evidence that her testimony was found to be a lie by God Himself. We believe men’s tradition rather than God’s word. I think that it is time to believe God that He will find as liars those who add to His word and the fact that He did not find Eve to be a liar makes God the key witness that Eve was not a sinner before she ate the fruit.