I’m left with this question, were there 2 trees or 1 at the time, when the woman spoke, in the middle of the garden? Surely the tree of life was able to reproduce, but not the tokogae because it had no seed (life) to do so.

Anyone read Hebrew? Is there more that than meets the eye in English?

Welcome!

This is one of my favorite topics!

What I want to share is that it IS plausible indeed that Adam added to God’s word and then told Eve a wrong command, and it is equally plausible that neither God nor Adam told her anything at all therefore she knew nothing at all about what God said, but these ‘plausiblilities’ can only be plausible outside of what we are given in the text itself that is, a perspective outside of the bible. In other words, anything is plausible, and I mean anything, from Genesis to Revelations, but if what we think and believe is bound by the text itself with all that it does and does not give, then such ‘plausibilities’ become ‘impossiblities’ biblicaly speaking. Does that make sense? It’s plausible that Adam got it wrong and told Eve, but is it biblical? No, because the bible doesn’t tell us this nor even give a slight indication or hint of it. ‘Plausible’, yes, biblicaly plausible, no.

Also I see what the woman said as more than an indication that God spoke to her that is, I see it as her very testimony of what God said, because she said, ‘God said’. And I don’t see an indication that Adam told her what God said, since she did not say, ‘Adam said, God said.’ So at the very least, with what we have in Gen 3, what she said, IS indicative that Gid did speak to them both and that God himself added to the command he had given to the man when he was alone, before the woman was created. So we have indications of who said what and to whom, but they do not include the man telling the woman what God said.

C & H say that this ties in with Paul’s words about women not teaching men.  In the specific context of the Ephesian church, Paul was worried that a particular woman (whom he does not name) might teach wrong things.  Since women were mainly illiterate back then and could only learn from men, the men would implicitly be responsible if they allowed this woman to get up and teach these things.  That would reflect badly on both the woman and the man who taught her.

As for the claim that “this means all men must be” I find that to be as spurious as the comp claim that “all women must be…”  The Bible nowhere makes generalizations about either gender.  Rather, it says that a specific woman made a mistake and listened to the serpent, just as a specific man made a mistake by not speaking up and mutely following his wife.  Throughout scripture, both men and women are praised for speaking well and rebuked for speaking unwisely.

The reason for this nitpicking is to not leave ourselves open to criticism. Just as women have to work twice as hard for the same pay, egals have to be twice as careful just to be heard.

I just do not want to claim more than the text says.

That is why I believe it is vital that we do not claim that Eve added to God’s word since the text does not say this.

The integration of the 3 origins stories in Gen 1-5 is non-trivial and open to alternatives, as they do not state everything we might wish they did.

I prefer to see Genesis 1 & 2 as looking at creation from two different directions for two different purposes.  One would be the big picture while Genesis 2 hones in on some very important specifics.  We need to consider all of the inspired words when we make a conclusion regarding the women’s purpose and whether she sinned against Adam or against God.  We simply cannot charge her with sin without a good foundation for that charge from scripture itself.

I agree that the early chapters of Genesis do not give us every detail that we would like.  These chapters also do not give us every conversation that God had with Adam and his wife including what God said to Adam when he brought the woman to him.  However we do know one thing for sure.  This is that the details that we do have are there for our instruction and for our correction.  I think we have everything we need to make wise decisions and proper judgments regarding the charge of sin.

trying to force fit an answer in this case goes beyond the text.

I certainly agree.  We should not force a restriction on the woman or a charge or guilt against Eve into the text when the text gives no indication of this addition.  If there is evidence for a view, then we should allow a conclusion on the evidence.  If there is no evidence then we can dismiss a forced view onto the text.

Of course we can use all the inspired text and grammar and comparisons with pagan origins stories to help us do our best to try to see what it meant to the original reader.

Historical sources are very helpful but they are not the word of God.  I believe that the word of God comes first and we can also consider other sources but never to allow them to contradict the word of God.  For example Jewish stories allow for a second creation of the woman.  Adam’s first wife, according to their tradition, was Lilleth who was not submissive to Adam and left him.  If I remember the story right, she flew away into the sky.  I think she was also created from the dirt as Adam was.  So God then created a woman from Adam’s side and this was Eve.  There is much more in that tradition that can be of interest, but it cannot come alongside of scripture, nor can it add to the scripture something that the scripture does not allow for.

Yes, you are right that there were two trees in the middle of the garden.  We do know that only one tree in the middle of the garden was forbidden.  We know this because God gave Adam permission to eat from every tree except for one.  We also know that God gave Adam and his wife permission to eat from every tree that had seed bearing fruit.  This must mean that the tree of life also had seed bearing fruit as Adam was given permission to eat from it before sin entered the world.

Fascinating topics and very lively discussions.  It gets my mind going and I love to discussion these things with people who also love the Lord Jesus as I do and highly respect the inspired word.  Thanks!

The integration of the 3 origins stories in Gen 1-5 is non-trivial and open to alternatives, as they do not state everything we might wish they did.  That is, we have questions that the text does not answer, trying to force fit an answer in this case goes beyond the text.  Of course we can use all the inspired text and grammar and comparisons with pagan origins stories to help us do our best to try to see what it meant to the original reader.  As this discussion is a major tangent to the title of this thread, I will simply point out that there were 2 trees in the middle of the garden and mentioning a tree in the middle of the garden is true but ambiguous.

But I disagree that she was “perfect”. Adam and Eve are never called perfect, but clearly they were created “innocent”– they did not yet know good from evil. They were also intelligent: their progeny could not have exceeded them, and look in the following chapters of Genesis for what they invented, especially knowing it was all truly new. So being innocent, intelligent people and with nothing to distract or confuse them, Adam and Eve could hardly be mistaken about anything God had expressly stated. We have to be careful not to project current conditions onto the pre-sin environment or people.

I would call this “perfect”.  It is “perfect” in our way of measuring things.  In God’s books they were not perfect, of course, because no one and no thing is perfect except for God.  So both Adam and Eve were innocent, intelligent, without sin at their creation, and had no bodily or mental defects. In our books, we could call them “perfect” as they represented “human” perfection, the very highest that we could ever attain to.  We do know that when Jesus comes back we will be much better than that because we will be like him in his resurrected body which goes beyond our standard of human perfection.

Good points, though, and I heartily agree.  I think it is time that we do not give a foothold to the hierarchists who insist on denigrating Eve with either a childlike inability to get a simple command right or who charge her with sin against God by importing into scripture a charge that Eve added to God’s words without one speck of evidence to support the claim and three witnesses (the serpent, Adam and God) who all were silent on any claim that Eve added to God’s words.