Adam and the fall

[Don Rapp]

I was attending a training session for counseling men and the person presenting the material (it was a video and I don't recall the person's name) put forth the idea that Adam was present with Eve when the serpent tempter her. His claim was that Adam was there but never spoke up during the whole conversation between Eve and the serpent. I find this difficult to swallow. It seems to me that if this is the case then Adam sinned before he he partook of the fruit by not fulfilling his role as husband and leader. I have looked at a few commentaries on the passage and most address the result of the fall and the consequences of Adam's sin but none specifically address where Adam may have been during the exchange between Eve and the serpent. I have been asked to head up this counseling program which is geared toward unsaved men in a crisis pregnancy center. My concern is that teaching this material will give a false understanding of original sin.
This is the first time I have run across this take on Gen. 3 so I would be interested in any suggestions for research. I am aware that the serpent's use of plural when addressing Eve (you, your etc.) could indicate that Adam was present but the text indicates that Eve and the Serpent were the only ones there.
Thanks for any input
Don

[Marv]

Sure, you can teach implications from Scriptural texts, stories. What isn't legitimate is teaching from fanciful additions to the text, such as Adam was present with Eve and the snake and did nothing. Not in the Bible. Again, nobody seemed to notice an earlier point, but these two had NO KNOWLEDGE of evil. There was no evil in the world. What exactly was Adam supposed to protect Eve from?

Rey Reynoso said:

The story doesn't have to be about that to have ramifications that are about that. People read the story of David and Bathsheba and know it's about David sinning--but they also see that David was in the wrong place and the right time; did everything possible to conceal his sin; had to be called out with a shepherding story to realize how utterly wrong he was. That doesn't make those secondary lessons non-existent, though.

Plus, the Bible does this sort of thing all the time. What's the moral of the Esther story? The Ruth Story? Why is Numbers structured the way it is? Indeed, none of these stories say "This story is about THIS" but they let the lessons speak on their own.

You have to ask, why does the book of Genesis continue dealing with families, and even family failures? Abraham lies an says his wife is his sister and Pharaoh marries her. He does it again with Abimelech. His son does that to Rebekah with another Abimelech. The story may not even be about The Sin and Fall of Man but rather The Redemption of Man Via the Working of God--but it still tells all those other stories.


Raquel said:

For serious, Rey.
To insert a moral [of the story] that isn't presented Biblically makes sense some how? We don't look at David and we go, "he was the most dramatic failure of a husband throughout all space and time." Why? Because that #1 spot was already taken by Adam? For serious. I do not get it. Just as telling David's story wasn't about THAT, I'm scratching my head trying to figure out how Adam's story is about it either.

[Don Rapp]

That has been my point all along. Well, maybe sort of all along the way (as the discussion has developed) We need to let God's word define what He is talking about. There are plenty of Scriptures that directly address a man's role as a husband, father and leader. Proverbs, Eph.5-6 are a couple of examples of texts that directly speak to the role of a husband and a father. There is no problem with making an application from a passage that intimates those things but to build a whole body of teaching about something which is based upon a personal take on what MIGHT be going on behind the scenes is very problematic in my humble opinion. I think that sort of thing is happening all to often in our churches today. There are so many wonderful, rich and obvious truths in any given portion of scripture. If we would just take the time to mine those truths that are clearly in the text we would have little time for finding things that "might" be there.

Raquel said:

meh.
There's a difference between the obvious secondary lessons that are interwoven within the story as compared to the ones that we weave in.
Adam failed as a husband here? Because... he should have stopped Eve? He shouldn't have followed her lead? He should have kept a close eye on her because she hadn't yet mastered the force? And then Adam is disciplined how by God? For what again?

David, on the other hand, looses a kid over his indiscretions. It is dealt with in the text. Abram hooks Pharaoh up with his wife and God throws in a plague or two. Again, dealt with in the text. It seems to me that when lines are crossed and God wants to teach a lesson, it's dealt with in the text.

Maybe I'm so egal that I can't see anything else. Or maybe I'm just dunce. Either way I just don't see it.

To me it's like talking about learning lessons from Joseph about how wrong that slavery is. Yes the noun (slavery) is in the text, but the lesson isn't. Not even in the ballpark.

[Rey Reynoso]

I was giving Raquel an answer to her earlier question; I'm not saying that the earlier conclusion was right or wrong. She asked how it is even remotely possible to have that sort of explanation and I walked her through a view of complementarianism that uses the text to teach a moral lesson without the text saying "This is the moral lesson".

My position has (and continues to be) that they sinned when they ate. They might have made mistakes but that doesn't mean they were being sinful while making mistakes (which is why I had asked way back on another page what could Adam being there or not being there possibly do to the doctrine of original sin.)

Marv said:

Sure, you can teach implications from Scriptural texts, stories. What isn't legitimate is teaching from fanciful additions to the text, such as Adam was present with Eve and the snake and did nothing. Not in the Bible. Again, nobody seemed to notice an earlier point, but these two had NO KNOWLEDGE of evil. There was no evil in the world. What exactly was Adam supposed to protect Eve from?/div>

[Marv]

Sure, I get what you were saying/doing. And I agreed there may well be a time and place for teaching from implications from the text beyond the point the author had wished to make, or from the events themselves as examples. I just maintain it really ought to be a valid implication and a presentation of events that we know to have taken place rather than imagined.

Otherwise we are just Eldredgizing some men-are-created-wild-at-heart-because-Adam-was-created-outside-the-garden crap.

Rey Reynoso said:

I was giving Raquel an answer to her earlier question; I'm not saying that the earlier conclusion was right or wrong. She asked how it is even remotely possible to have that sort of explanation and I walked her through a view of complementarianism that uses the text to teach a moral lesson without the text saying "This is the moral lesson".

My position has (and continues to be) that they sinned when they ate. They might have made mistakes but that doesn't mean they were being sinful while making mistakes (which is why I had asked way back on another page what could Adam being there or not being there possibly do to the doctrine of original sin.)

Marv said:

Sure, you can teach implications from Scriptural texts, stories. What isn't legitimate is teaching from fanciful additions to the text, such as Adam was present with Eve and the snake and did nothing. Not in the Bible. Again, nobody seemed to notice an earlier point, but these two had NO KNOWLEDGE of evil. There was no evil in the world. What exactly was Adam supposed to protect Eve from?/div>

[Marv]

Fish in a barrel. Like getting points for putting "peanut butter" and "jelly" in the same sentence.

love4theword said:

Marv.

Bonus points for using Crap and Eldridge in a sentence.

Marv said:

Sure, I get what you were saying/doing. And I agreed there may well be a time and place for teaching from implications from the text beyond the point the author had wished to make, or from the events themselves as examples. I just maintain it really ought to be a valid implication and a presentation of events that we know to have taken place rather than imagined.

Otherwise we are just Eldredgizing some men-are-created-wild-at-heart-because-Adam-was-created-outside-the-garden crap.

[Marv]

If you mean that male headship does not origniate with this curse statement, I think you are exactly right. Adam was already in the place of headship, in healthy and loving authority, prior to the fall. The fall distorted and perverted this relationship as it does everything. I don't think that is what you meant, but I agree that the punishment pronouncements are not meant to be the basis for good relationships but unhealthy ones.

Joshua Allen said:

FWIW, I don't really see a complimentarian message in the garden story. Genesis 3:16 says "Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you". That sounds like a curse and a punishment, not the way God intended things to be.

Rey Reynoso said:

I was giving Raquel an answer to her earlier question; I'm not saying that the earlier conclusion was right or wrong. She asked how it is even remotely possible to have that sort of explanation and I walked her through a view of complementarianism that uses the text to teach a moral lesson without the text saying "This is the moral lesson".

My position has (and continues to be) that they sinned when they ate. They might have made mistakes but that doesn't mean they were being sinful while making mistakes (which is why I had asked way back on another page what could Adam being there or not being there possibly do to the doctrine of original sin.)

Marv said:

Sure, you can teach implications from Scriptural texts, stories. What isn't legitimate is teaching from fanciful additions to the text, such as Adam was present with Eve and the snake and did nothing. Not in the Bible. Again, nobody seemed to notice an earlier point, but these two had NO KNOWLEDGE of evil. There was no evil in the world. What exactly was Adam supposed to protect Eve from?/div>

[Jonathan Perez]

Legally, Adam didn't sin because the only law around at the time was to not eat the danged fruit. But was there sin? As the apostle Paul argues, even before the law was given to Moses, people died. And the only law that was around to break during that time was the law given to Adam (and Eve) not to eat that fruit but people still died "even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam"

so, on one hand, "sin is not imputed when there is no law" (you can't blame Adam for just shutting up) but was it wrong anyway?

Dispensationalists would say "dispensation of innocence" (it doesn't matter) and that would be the end of that. Though we might consider, if he took his time not naming animals left and right and took a relaxing break to eat some non-knowledge fruit, did he commit the sin of omission? If he stepped on an ant unnecessarily for lack of care, was it wrong? If he ate a little bit more than he should, was it 1% gluttony? If he looked in the water and saw himself "Danged i'm cute!", was it pride?

I guess what we could tell people is that we can't base the whole character of a person in just a single short instance in which it was even clearly seen a mistake. Poor Adam, one booboo and now he's assumed to be henpecked as well. >_<

[Marv]

I think I would suggest that the point of view you describe is not "complementarianism" at all and should not ever be confused with it. It's something else entirely, chauvinism perhaps or just plain selfishness, neither of which play any role whatsoever in Scriptural complementariansim. If there are only two options in the world, and the dividing line runs between complementarianism and egalitarianism, then there is a whole lotta room to veer off course in either direction. But those two large sides ought to have a different name than C. and E. because before they go very far at all they would cease to have any Scriptural justification at all.

So "male chauvinist pigs" are NOT complemenarianists, and have no warrant from Scripture in the least. The curse statements of Gen 3 are NEVER something that justifies the behavior they describe. I am given to understand that some egals. suppose that complementarians do derive the marital authority structure they teach from these verses but this is not the case.

Joshua Allen said:

Yeah, that actually is exactly what I meant. I've seen too many cases where a very hierarchy-minded complementarian behaves as if Genesis 3:16 describes the proper role of a husband. And it tends to be the men who treat their wives most like beasts who spend the most time defending themselves with scripture. The fact that the sexes are complimentary is common sense and needs no theological basis -- it wasn't even much of an issue until Simone de Beauvoir. The garden story doesn't really deal with this "Simone de Beauvoir" type of egalitarianism, IMO; and Paul deals with it in a very limited context. If the garden story teaches us anything about complimentarianism, it's that there is a certain form of "complimentarianism" which is a curse and a mistake. How some people draw the exact opposite lesson (i.e. that women are prone to temptation and need to be ruled over) is beyond me.

Marv said:

If you mean that male headship does not origniate with this curse statement, I think you are exactly right. Adam was already in the place of headship, in healthy and loving authority, prior to the fall. The fall distorted and perverted this relationship as it does everything. I don't think that is what you meant, but I agree that the punishment pronouncements are not meant to be the basis for good relationships but unhealthy ones.

Joshua Allen said:

FWIW, I don't really see a complimentarian message in the garden story. Genesis 3:16 says "Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you". That sounds like a curse and a punishment, not the way God intended things to be.

Rey Reynoso said:

I was giving Raquel an answer to her earlier question; I'm not saying that the earlier conclusion was right or wrong. She asked how it is even remotely possible to have that sort of explanation and I walked her through a view of complementarianism that uses the text to teach a moral lesson without the text saying "This is the moral lesson".

My position has (and continues to be) that they sinned when they ate. They might have made mistakes but that doesn't mean they were being sinful while making mistakes (which is why I had asked way back on another page what could Adam being there or not being there possibly do to the doctrine of original sin.)

Marv said:

Sure, you can teach implications from Scriptural texts, stories. What isn't legitimate is teaching from fanciful additions to the text, such as Adam was present with Eve and the snake and did nothing. Not in the Bible. Again, nobody seemed to notice an earlier point, but these two had NO KNOWLEDGE of evil. There was no evil in the world. What exactly was Adam supposed to protect Eve from?/div>