Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Byron & Linetta Knutson" <byronk AT open.org>]

Thought it might be of interest to note that Paul
suggests that Eve did not sin.

1 Timothy 2:14 And Adam was not deceived, but the
woman being deceived was in the transgression
(parabasis).

She did, however, transgress or break the law
which at that time seems to have been as follows:

Gen 2:15 And the LORD God took the man, and put
him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to
keep it. {the man: or, Adam}
 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of
every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
{thou...: Heb. eating thou shalt eat}
 17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day
that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
{thou shalt surely...: Heb. dying thou shalt die:

Paul also seems to indicate that Adam was the
source of sin entering into the world, not Eve:

Rom 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin (hamartia)
entered into the world, and death by sin; and so
death passed upon all men, for that all have
sinned:
 13 (For until the law sin was in the world: but
sin is not imputed when there is no law.
 14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses,
even over them that had not sinned after the
similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the
figure of him that was to come.

While Adam did transgress the law, too, by eating,
that is, he broke the rule/law, he did it with a
different motive and so sinned as well.

I see the scenario something like this:

Eve is talking to the serpent who represents the
eating of the fruit as worthwhile.  It would
enable her (as well as Adam) to take care of the
garden without bothering God.  Why bother God
every day?  He wouldn't have to come and tell you
how to take care of things, you could figure it
out for yourself.  Think about it.  She does, was
deceived and then goes to Adam.

Adam sees Eve.  She is dying or dead somehow.
Perhaps she has had a garment of light stripped
off of her so that she is naked now indicating she
is dead/dying.  Maybe something else indicated her
death.  At any rate, Adam's choice is quite
different.  Remember that a while back He had had
to name all the animals, an exercise that
demonstrated quite definitely to him that he had
no counterpart.  Each of the animals were male and
female, male and female, male and female.  So Adam
realizes he has no counterpart.  God makes him
one - Eve.  Now he has had Eve for a while and he
is kind of partial to her.  Then she comes and she
is separated from him by this death problem.  I
don't know that he understood what death really
was since they probably had never seen it yet.  At
any rate, his dilemma is this:  If Eve dies, he
has no promise that God will replace her with
another woman.  Will God be sufficient for Adam to
meet his needs or will he join the woman in her
death?  He chooses Eve and snubs God.  He rebels
because the woman is more important to him that
God, or God's command.  Therein lies his sin, that
he rebels at God's command to remain with the
woman.  The woman has had no such dilemma, she
thought she was doing a good thing and it wasn't
done with a rebellious attitude.

Another side issue.  The knowing the difference
between good and evil (that which is to their
benefit or to their disadvantage) is hardly
equivalent to omniscience.  They were only like
God in this one tiny little area.  It was probably
only the activation of their conscience, the
conscience being a socially oriented mechanism of
the mind.  Prior to this there was no disharmony
in the social structure.  In breaking the law,
disharmony is introduced, and hurt feeling are now
a reality.  Whatever it was, it is hard to see how
you can stretch this to mean that they were
equivalent to God in every way except they were
subject to death now.  And if you could only
overcome the death issue there would be Adam God
and Eve God.

Well, food for thought.  It has been interesting
to see everything thats hitting the fan.

Byron Knutson