Hi Wolfie :)
Just a quick stab at what you are saying about Adam and Eve's physical relationship. When they were brought together, God said to them 'be fruitful', 'multiply'. So, standing there before their Creator, and they had the necessary 'equipment', why not?:heartbeat:
Not to mention being perfectly formed and probably very desirable to each others eyes.
My reasoning also is that sex has been claimed as the first sin by some churches - the Catholic church for one - and maybe others too. They overlook that God said to be fruitful before they were cast out.
Eve being named I think would have taken a longer time as names are important and often dependent on the circumstances. The situation had certainly changed when they were about to be cast out of their home and Adam named her.
Anyway, it's something for me to research.
T[/i]essa
Hi Tessa--
I am just thinking out loud on this as the details are precious and few But I actually used your same line of thinking regarding their command to reproduce and their perfect health to come to the conclusion she would have conceived almost immediately --if not immediately--yet it was OUtside the garden all this happened. If they had had children in their perfect and approved state and then fallen as they did and sent outside the garden as a punishment would it have been a punishment to send the children out also? Their ''perfect'' children if they had had any? Would they have still been under the sinful condition mankind was now in? How would that work? I wonder--how would that have changed things yet again? just a-wondering Tessa....
Love, wolfie :love:
ps--regarding the name Eve. That seems to have come to Adam very quickly as I look at it simply because he used their destiny to choose it. God gave them their punishments in Chapter 3 and after that Adam named Eve based on verse 20:
''After this Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she had to become the mother of everyone living.'' That was made clear from her inception.
It is my conclusion that Eve hadn't been in the garden hardly anytime at all. I have to wonder if ''the serpent'' wasn't lying in wait for her before she even got there. How this affects me personally is that I realize there is so little we truly know that judging Adam and Eve is futile--at least for me because we don't know enough and judgments tend to be very harsh. It really has changed my outlook regarding this part of the story..... :love: :friends:
The point raised about imperfection passed from generation to generation through offspring born by sexual intercourse might be very valid. If human parents could not produce a child born without the dent, it was absolutely essential that the child be born of holy spirit. If so, what is it that we don’t understand about the husband/wife relationship that a child created in the womb by holy spirit can be perfect, even though His mother is an imperfect human? I would have thought it was necessary to have two perfect parents to create a perfect child. I’m thinking mathematically; two positives make a positive, two negatives even make a positive, but a negative and a positive always produce a negative. Perhaps there is a sacred secret here about the relationship between men and women that I do not understand.
Brendan.
This is one of those "big questions", isn't it....
My impression from reading the scriptures is that life and death are passed by the father. Otherwise why does the scripture say:
"That is why, just as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because they had all sinned." -- Romans 5:12
....when it was Eve who disobeyed first.
If we believe the account of the virgin birth (and I do!), then the bible makes it plain that Jesus did not have an earthly father. His was a miraculous birth by the power of the holy spirit that overshadowed Mary throughout her pregnancy.
"In her (Elizabeth) sixth month the angel Ga′bri·el was sent forth from God to a city of Gal′i·lee named Naz′a·reth, to a virgin promised in marriage to a man named Joseph of David’s house; and the name of the virgin was Mary. And when he went in before her he said: “Good day, highly favored one, Jehovah is with you.†But she was deeply disturbed at the saying and began to reason out what sort of greeting this might be. So the angel said to her: “Have no fear, Mary, for you have found favor with God; and, look! you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son, and you are to call his name Jesus. This one will be great and will be called Son of the Most High; and Jehovah God will give him the throne of David his father, 33 and he will rule as king over the house of Jacob forever, and there will be no end of his kingdom.†But Mary said to the angel: “How is this to be, since I am having no intercourse with a man?†In answer the angel said to her: “Holy spirit will come upon you, and power of the Most High will overshadow you. For that reason also what is born will be called holy, God’s Son. And, look! Elizabeth your relative has also herself conceived a son, in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her, the so-called barren woman; because with God no declaration will be an impossibility.†Then Mary said: “Look! Jehovah’s slave girl! May it take place with me according to your declaration.†At that the angel departed from her." -- Luke 1:26-38
That is also why the scripture at Hebrews 4:15 says:
"For we have as high priest, not one who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tested in all respects like ourselves, but without sin."
The Concordant Literal Version also uses the phrase "corresponding ransom". The Greek word in the W&H is translated "instead-loosener" while the NA says "correspondent-ransom"
_____Strongs_____
G487 antilutron an-til'-oo-tron
from G473 and G3083;
a redemption-price:--ransom.
Hope this adds a meaty bit to the pot:eat:
Rez:giverose:
Just another thought on the flaming sword thing-y...
The word for paradise is from the Persian and means a
"walled garden". If, indeed, it took only two angels and a sword to guard the way back into the garden, that could be explained by there being some sort of wall...whether of vegetation or something else....with only one gate.
The similarity between Eden and the New Jerusalem in Revelation is striking to me. Wall, gates, angels, trees of life, God's presence, etc.....but no swords are mentioned. Maybe the twelve angels have swords, or some means to determine and enforce who gets to go in.
"And its gates will not be closed at all by day, for night will not exist there. And they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. But anything not sacred and anyone that carries on a disgusting thing and a lie will in no way enter into it; only those written in the Lamb’s scroll of life [will]." -- Revelation 21:25-27
I really like Lynn's thoughts here which I'm going to quote for this page...they're too good to get buried!
Adam was spoken of as being in Gods Image. But his offspring were refered to as being in the Image of Adam. I think this difference helps us see that something was lost. Humans could no longer bear the image of God. What had Adam lost? Why did he feel naked? He no longer felt clothed, and he perhaps sensed that loss of bearing the image of God.
Jesus explains to us that we must be born again.
Joh 1:12 Some, however, did receive him and believed in him; so he gave them the right to become God's children. :13 They did not become God's children by natural means, that is, by being born as the children of a human father; God himself was their Father.
and
Joh 3:3 Jesus answered, "I am telling you the truth: no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born again." :4 "How can a grown man be born again?" Nicodemus asked. "He certainly cannot enter his mother's womb and be born a second time!"
Joh 3:5 "I am telling you the truth," replied Jesus, "that no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit.
:6 A person is born physically of human parents, but is born spiritually of the Spirit. :7 Do not be surprised because I tell you that you must all be born again.
Jesus gave us the ability to be clothed again. We are reborn of the Spirit, and through it we are no longer 'naked' and can also share in being in the image of God, because all who are part of the body of Christ are in his image.
Adam gave us physical life. But he was could not give us the relationship he lost, being clothed in his image. Jesus is called the greater adam, because he restored to us the true source of Life, being a child of God, in his image. Through him we are all reborn.
May I just add to this what Jesus said at Luke 19:10:
"For the Son of man came to seek and to save what was lost.â€
Love to all you searchers:heartbeat:
Rez
I am just thinking out loud on this as the details are precious and few But I actually used your same line of thinking regarding their command to reproduce and their perfect health to come to the conclusion she would have conceived almost immediately --if not immediately--yet it was OUtside the garden all this happened
Oh, I dunno, Wolfie....LOL:D I was just watching a bit of "China's Sexual Revolution" and amazingly, some married couples wondered if touching legs in bed would cause the woman to get pregnant.:shocked::help: I guess the "cultural revolution" kinda killed sex.:blush:
Hi Guys,
I’ve always understood that it only took one look from a cockeyed man to get a girl pregnant, but if Adam was perfect, perhaps they had to wait until after the Fall...
Brendan.
Too funny, Brendan.....:rofl:
I am just thinking out loud on this as the details are precious and few But I actually used your same line of thinking regarding their command to reproduce and their perfect health to come to the conclusion she would have conceived almost immediately --if not immediately--yet it was OUtside the garden all this happened
Oh, I dunno, Wolfie....LOL:D I was just watching a bit of "China's Sexual Revolution" and amazingly, some married couples wondered if touching legs in bed would cause the woman to get pregnant.:shocked::help: I guess the "cultural revolution" kinda killed sex.:blush:
maybe there was a little bit of a learning curve Res... In my romantic mind I see them really getting to know each other and truly love each other --a new experience for both of them.. :heartbeat:
Hi Wolfie,
Picturing the couple in Eden, I think they might have had at least a few weeks together, maybe 2-3 months? Well, I'm thinking also that they would have come together in that time - physically. This was their beautiful time of getting to know each other. It would have been pretty hard not to under those ideal circumstances. But without Eve conceiving.
We may disagree just a teeny bit here on the naming time period. So likewise, when they received their sentence from God, in Gen. 3:20 they were still inside the Garden when Adam gave her the name Eve. Then, v23 says they were 'sent away'. I see that Adam named her inside (the garden) like he did with the animals.
Like you say Wolfie, just a 'little peanut from the gallery' :siskiss:
Love,Tessa
Hi Wolfie,
Picturing the couple in Eden, I think they might have had at least a few weeks together, maybe 2-3 months? Well, I'm thinking also that they would have come together in that time - physically. This was their beautiful time of getting to know each other. It would have been pretty hard not to under those ideal circumstances. But without Eve conceiving.
We may disagree just a teeny bit here on the naming time period. So likewise, when they received their sentence from God, in Gen. 3:20 they were still inside the Garden when Adam gave her the name Eve. Then, v23 says they were 'sent away'. I see that Adam named her inside (the garden) like he did with the animals.
Like you say Wolfie, just a 'little peanut from the gallery' :siskiss:
Love,Tessa
Hi Tessa--
No worries about agree or disagree. :love: I am only thinking out loud as no one has a real time line for accuracy. My only real awareness I took away from this that matters or affects me personally has been that the time they were together before the fall from grace was short--not sweet but incredibly short. When I piece it together it appears to me to be so sudden--they had not conceived a child which I feel they would have done immediately upon having relations , after all that was their mission--and Eve had not been named before she ate of the tree and until after their punishments given to them. It sounds to me that in the timing of her receving her name it was simply understood that as a couple she was going to have children and ..become the mother of everyone living.'' That was something still left to them...And the only way this affects me at all is understanding my own understanding :thinking: has been so rigid all these many years that being more flexible and more aware that even in this seemingly simple story lie many complexities we may not yet be able to discern judgement is impossible...We simply don't have all the details...The dilemma is that one more question leads to even one more question. :cheekkiss: