The Role of Women

A good point.

Christians are told to "bless those that curse us", but the Government "is given the sword for a reason", so God clearly sets different rules for the Government and His Church.

Does anyone remember Deborah? Not a Priest, but a Judge.

 

Think about the absolute tragedy that Adam sinned willfully. He was not deceived. It is through his willful act of sin that brought sin to every person that has ever lived.

If you claim women are easily deceived in matters of religion, then follow through the logic and claim men are prone to deliberate rebellion against God.

Amazing Eve did not forsake him for willfully sinning against God and then blaming her for his moral failure.

Looks like that pattern of blaming women for the moral failures of men continues to this very day.

peace to you

 

God placed the blame upon Adam, not Eve!

 

Milton puts it well in Paradise Lost:

"O fairest of Creation, last and best
Of all God's works, Creature in whom excelled
Whatever can to sight or thought be formed,
Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet!
How art thou lost! how on a sudden lost,
Defaced, deflowered, and now to death devote!
Rather, how hast thou yielded to transgress
The strict forbiddance, how to violate
The sacred fruit forbidden! Some cursed fraud
Of enemy hath beguiled thee, yet unknown,
And me with thee hath ruined; for with thee
Certain my resolution is to die:
How can I live without thee! how forego
Thy sweet converse, and love so dearly joined,
To live again in these wild woods forlorn!
Should God create another Eve, and I
Another rib afford, yet loss of thee
Would never from my heart: no, no!I feel
The link of Nature draw me: flesh of flesh,
Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state
Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.
So having said, as one from sad dismay
Recomforted, and after thoughts disturbed
Submitting to what seemed remediless,
Thus in calm mood his words to Eve he turned.
Bold deed thou hast presumed, adventurous Eve,
And peril great provoked, who thus hast dared,
Had it been only coveting to eye
That sacred fruit, sacred to abstinence,
Much more to taste it under ban to touch.
But past who can recall, or done undo?
Not God Omnipotent, nor Fate; yet so
Perhaps thou shalt not die, perhaps the fact
Is not so heinous now, foretasted fruit,
Profaned first by the serpent, by him first
Made common, and unhallowed, ere our taste;
Nor yet on him found deadly; yet he lives;
Lives, as thou saidst, and gains to live, as Man,
Higher degree of life; inducement strong
To us, as likely tasting to attain
Proportional ascent; which cannot be
But to be Gods, or Angels, demi-Gods.
Nor can I think that God, Creator wise,
Though threatening, will in earnest so destroy
Us his prime creatures, dignified so high,
Set over all his works; which in our fall,
For us created, needs with us must fail,
Dependant made; so God shall uncreate,
Be frustrate, do, undo, and labour lose;
Not well conceived of God, who, though his power
Creation could repeat, yet would be loath
Us to abolish, lest the Adversary
Triumph, and say; "Fickle their state whom God
"Most favours; who can please him long? Me first
"He ruined, now Mankind; whom will he next?"
Matter of scorn, not to be given the Foe.
However I with thee have fixed my lot,
Certain to undergo like doom: If death
Consort with thee, death is to me as life;
So forcible within my heart I feel
The bond of Nature draw me to my own;
My own in thee, for what thou art is mine;
Our state cannot be severed; we are one,
One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself." (emphasis mine)

 

Not so, but on Adam, Eve, and the Serpent, all.

 

It is an intriguing point that only Adam knew the feeling of being alone with no companion at all, most especially no mate. Eve only knew of having her husband.

 

Yes, a point I am thoroughly familiar with in my personal life experience this year.

 

I would say yours is worse, because of knowing the former, then having, then losing. Adam could still only imagine the latter. Had Milton already lost his wife by this time?

 

Not challenging your main point, but am curious of the need to make the fruit edible only by getting up. Got up from where? Why? The text says Eve also gave the fruit to her husband with her. Is this extra point really important to your thesis?

 

Milton had two wives die by 1658, which was the same year he began composing Paradise Lost.

He married a third time in 1663 and she outlived him.

 

[Gen 3:14-19 KJV]
14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou [art] cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: 15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire [shall be] to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed [is] the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat [of] it all the days of thy life; 18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; 19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou [art], and unto dust shalt thou return.​

From what I read,

• the serpent was directly cursed,
• Eve suffered consequences because she was deceived but no mention of a curse,
• Adam suffered consequences while the “ground” was cursed because of Adam’s choice.