The Plan To Smuggle in Women Pastors

Do you agree with the 'nuts'? If not, why does their incorrect opinion matter when determining the true meaning of scripture?

I think Occam would take the side of the actual words of Paul. You're literally reading another statement into the verse.

The verse says:

and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.​

You read it as:

and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor, and Adam did not become a transgressor.
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Again, Paul didn't get it wrong and people who think the original sin was all Eve's fault are wrong. Both conclusions are true, your premise is false. 1 Timothy does not contradict Genesis.

It is not premised on that, it's premised on the opposite. Genesis is a narrative fable. If it were a scientific recording of history then we could dismiss the events as historical coincidence without any deeper meaning. Because it's not a scientific recording of history, the story has allegorical meaning. You've got the wires crossed the wrong way. (There's a lot that people get wrong on Genesis because think it literal history - this is not an example of that).

 

So, what exactly are you saying? If Eve was not a real person, why should real women today bear the blame for what a mere legend did?

 

A question comes to mind: if Adam and Eve were not real, historical persons, what does that do to the basis for 'original sin' (or, if you prefer, ancestral sin)?

Another question: how could Jesus be the 'second Adam' if there were no real first Adam?

A third question: why did Paul write about Adam and Eve as if they were real?

A fourth question: what does that do to the genealogy of Jesus? Luke seemed to think that Adam was a real person.
Luk_3:38 Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.

There are Bible believers, and there are Bible doubters.... Perhaps you've been reading books written by some of the latter?

 

Women should not?

 

To clarify, I have been saying Paul never said original sin is all women's fault and that men never did anything wrong.

Tiffy is saying Paul did say that and Paul was wrong.

No one is saying (in this thread... yet) that Paul did say that and Paul was right.

 

I would say that what we call “original sin” is a fact for which Christian theologians going all the way back to St. Paul have tried to employ Genesis as an explanation. If that explanation fails, the fact still remains. (And remember, there is no ‘original sin’ in Judaism or Islam. It seems that faith in the Act of Redemption is a prerequisite to fully understanding the need for that Redemption.)

There doesn’t have to be a historical person named “Adam” for St. Paul’s statement to be true. Human beings, all the way back to the very first one, were merely ‘living souls’, whereas Christ, the goal of all humanity, is a ‘life-giving spirit’.

St. Paul undoubtedly believed that Adam and Eve were real, historical persons, as I suspect any other religious Jew at the time would have done.

 

There is the possibility though that even Paul did not regard Adam as a real live historical character. The Jews in the 1st Century Roman Empire era were not all literalist fundamentalists, as is often fondly imagined by the literalist fundamentalists of today.

An examination of Rabinical thought in the period reveals a much more sophisticated understanding of alegory, metaphor, symbolism, mythic appreciation and type identification in their interpretation of Genesis chapters 1-5. Genesis was by no means interpreted even by 1st Century scriptural scholars as literally a mere historical account. Even the Greeks and Romans were not all so stupid as to think their Gods were actually real flesh and blood historical characters. This is partly why Christianity was seen as such a threat by some of the Roman authorities. Jesus Christ was a real historical character and also regarded by his followers as the one and only God.

It is still possible for an author to refer to mythical characters as if they were real flesh and blood historical people. I could for instance refer to Romeo and Juliet in a sentence illustrating the tragedy of love frustrated by hate within rival families. I can even refer to them as if they were real people. You would all probably understand exactly what I was getting at, (if you knew Shakespear's play), even though Romeo and Juliet are known by all of us to be fictional characters. The story of the fall in the Garden of Eden, (which all Jews knew), has all the elements of a mythic fable explaining mystical truths concerning the human psyche. Our predisposition to sin. Our fear of death. Our desire for purpose and meaning, for reasons to exist. Our sense of loss, bereavement and alienation from God. Those are the realities we are dealing in. It's all in there in that story, if you just go and look for it.
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I must admit, I erred in my previous post. I erroneously gave the impression that Paul and Luke are the authors of statements that portray Adam and Eve as real, historical persons. In truth, it is the perfect word of God that portrays Adam and Eve as real, historical persons.

Luk 3:23 And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli,
Luk 3:24 Which was the son of Matthat, which was the son of Levi, which was the son of Melchi, which was the son of Janna, which was the son of Joseph,
Luk 3:25 Which was the son of Mattathias, which was the son of Amos, which was the son of Naum, which was the son of Esli, which was the son of Nagge,...
Luk 3:37 Which was the son of Mathusala, which was the son of Enoch, which was the son of Jared, which was the son of Maleleel, which was the son of Cainan,
Luk 3:38 Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.

1Co 15:45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

Gen 2:21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
Gen 2:22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
Gen 2:23 And Adam said...

Last time I checked, allegories don't sleep, speak, or beget descendants. Since the word of God characterizes Adam as a genuine, historical person (a living soul!), we who claim to believe God's word should therefore believe what God has said in plain, understandable words about Adam. We should believe what God has said without reservation and without unbelief.

Picking and choosing the parts we want to take as "God's honest truth," versus the parts we want to allegorize so as to fit with our personal concepts, is no better than taking scissors to God's word and cutting out the parts we don't agree with.

 

The scripture is God-breathed, pneaustos.

St Paul does not matter, as all of the scriptures were inspired by the Holy Ghost himself.

Yup.

I’m going to take this as charitably as I can.

Ok.

So, there is a way to save the historical Adam and Eve from the ravages of liberalism, but to do that, one has to surround himself with orthodox, unchanging, traditional Christians. It is impossible to remain in the Episcopal Church and maintain a hope of retaining any Christian truths long-term.

If you were ensconced in a traditionalist community whose heart and mind were set on remaining faithful against all odds, you would have someone share with you the scientific evidence for a historical Adam, who was discovered in our distant past on the basis of genetics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Adam

 

I’ve heard about this before. In terms of the current discussion, I think what you’re attempting to conclude is a non sequitur. Here is an interesting part of the Wikipedia article:

We’re talking about 200,000 to 300,000 years ago, which is, to put it mildly, well outside the bounds of recorded history. Even Genesis stopped short of 1,000 years when assigning lifespans. As if that weren’t enough, it is also not believed that the “X-chromosomal ‘Eve’” lived at the same time. I think modern genetics has shown that we need more than a single human pair to explain the diversity of the human gene pool today. The Genesis stories are myths, and it is not at all clear from their original literary context that their original purpose was to teach us anything about sin and redemption at all, or that they were ever meant to be understood literally.

 

Genesis 1.1 is even further back.

I'm not sure what your point is.

So instead of latching on to the most incredible collaboration of Scripture by science, and waiting on Science to take another 1000 years to fully catch up to God's revelation, you'll latch on to any excuse available to continue maintaining Scripture in a disreputable status. Ok.

It seems as if this conversation isn't being conducted in good faith. Even if I showed more evidence (and I have a bunch more), an escape hatch will always be looked for, in order to dismiss the credibility of what was presented.

Right. That's what is underneath the denial of surface doctrines like Women's Ordination. Rank infidelity. The catechism of the Episcopal Church.

So if Genesis is a myth, then that means that original sin does not exist. Which means there is nothing wrong with mankind, and it is not doomed for damnation. And there is actually no need for a Saviour. So even if Jesus of Nazareth existed (not at all 100% certain, surely?), he didn't have to come, as nothing fundamentally was wrong in the first place. So then what is all this for, why are you wasting your time on a pile of myths? There is no need to waste time, life is too short.

 

We weren’t talking about Genesis 1:1. We were talking about Genesis 1:26-27 and Genesis 2. You said there was scientific evidence for a historical Adam, and provided a link to a Wikipedia entry. I read it. The Wikipedia entry said the most recent common patrilineal ancestor lived between 200,000 - 300,000 years ago. Recorded history only goes back a fraction of that amount of time, unless the Y-chromosomal Adam was also literate and left behind writings for us to study. The same Wikipedia entry incidentally says that the most recent common matrilineal ancestor (“Eve”) probably didn’t live at the same time, which isn’t a terribly important detail, but it is interesting. In any event, such an individual would simply be another important link in the evolutionary chain, which of course is quite different from the account of Adam’s creation in ch. 2. It would certainly be easier if we could simply take these stories at face value, but modern science hasn’t left that avenue open to us. C.S. Lewis thought much of the OT was mythical as well. It’s not at all clear what any of this has to do with the Episcopal Church.

My change of heart and mind on WO was a result of conducting as thorough an investigation as I could of the theological arguments for a male-only clergy. What the NT authors, Church Fathers, etc., believed Genesis was saying was far more important than the literal words of Genesis taken in isolation. I was considering the arguments, not the raw data, as it were. Interestingly, the notion of “original sin” isn’t in the Genesis narrative itself, and other traditions that either rely on the Genesis narrative (Judaism), or that assume that Adam and Eve were real people (Islam), also do not see original sin in the story.

What I suspect happened is that the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord forced the early Christians to see many of the stories they had been familiar with all their lives in an entirely new light, and to recognize deeper meanings in passages which had not presented themselves before. So Genesis 3 became the explanation for original sin because the work of Christ demanded such an explanation. Adam and Eve not only don’t have to be historical in order for the Genesis account to be true, but in the fact the story is more true as a myth than as a history: Adam and Eve are all of us. We all disobey. We are all deceived. We all think we can hide from God. To assume that the Christian understanding of Genesis 3 is to assign blame to anyone other than ourselves for our condition, is to tragically miss the very lesson the Church’s interpretation of the story is intended to teach. It’s interesting that the story and its characters virtually disappear from the OT almost as soon as they appear. You really have to wait for some of the Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical books to be written for the story to assume much prominence. One such passage - Wisdom of Solomon, ch. 1 - was actually the first Reading at the Liturgy this morning.

 

Actually I don't read it that way but I think many headship 'nuts' do.
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I do completely see your point, and in fact agree with it, the way you have explained your understanding of its import.

Much depends simply on the stress the reader gives to each word. How would you read the meaning for instance if it were emphasised this way:

"and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor."

Now do you see the implication? Looking purely at the sentence in English, it is quite easy for any male supremacist, headship 'nutter' to interpret it as saying the only person mentioned in this sentence who obviously transgressed, is Eve. Therefore Eve was the source of the problem. Therefore the daughters of Eve must be kept firmly under male control in case they do it again.

"I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor."

There is absolutely no mention anywhere in those sentences of Adam being a transgressor. Not even the slightest hint. The one and only person accused of becoming a transgressor in either of these two sentences is Eve. (Correct me if I'm wrong).

Either the author is implying by default that Adam did not transgress but Eve did, (which some foolish 'headship' people will be only too quick to seize upon), or the author was just sloppy in his sentence construction and inadvertently introduced a misleading ambiguity. It's clear he had a downer on women though and wanted them kept firmly in their place, (a not uncommonly patronising attitude in the era that this was written).

If indeed the text is pseudepigraphous it would not surprise me that the sentences are sloppy and may be also theologically inept.
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Probably true. Otherwise, next we might read: Noah never existed, the flood was an allegory!
Followed by: Abraham and Sarah never existed, their tale is just an allegory!
Etc, etc.