The ADAM & EVE excuse

[Memphis Dwight]

When teaching others about the monogamy-only falsehood forced upon the churches for the last 1000 years, it gets comical , all the excuses the monogamaniacs come up with to hold onto their pet false doctrine.

They say that since Adam had only one wife then that must be a binding pattern. But this can be easily dealt with
by pointing to the fact that Adam and his wife were of the same race. If one is going to argue that the monogamy situation of
Adam and Eve is binding on all, then surely the same race aspect must be too. Who among us would plea for such a racist teaching?

But if the monogamaniacs are going to force one part, then they must force it all. If not, then why not?

Also, though I don't consider there to be such a thing as premarital sex, Adam did see his wife naked before "marriage". So the prudes in the church would have to admit that this precedent is still binding and that it is fine for a man to see his woman naked before they are married.

 

[PolyPride]

When teaching others about the monogamy-only falsehood forced upon the churches for the last 1000 years, it gets comical , all the excuses the monogamaniacs come up with to hold onto their pet false doctrine.

They say that since Adam had only one wife then that must be a binding pattern. But this can be easily dealt with
by pointing to the fact that Adam and his wife were of the same race. If one is going to argue that the monogamy situation of
Adam and Eve is binding on all, then surely the same race aspect must be too. Who among us would plea for such a racist teaching?

Good points, Dwight.

But if the monogamaniacs are going to force one part, then they must force it all. If not, then why not?

[/quote]

Well said. If the monogamaniacs are unwilling to consistently follow the pattern that they based their argument on, then they may as well be guilty of picking and choosing what to follow. I'd also wonder if they'd also accuse God of being guilty of deviating from his original creation in Eden by establishing a male patriarchy after the fall, whereas before the fall, Adam and Eve were equal - neither of them were a head over another. The head position of the husband was given as part of or during the punishments that God was giving to Eve. Maybe married couples should also be vegetarians since Adam and Eve presumably did not kill animals for meat. And finally married couples should be nudists since Adam and Eve walked around nude with no shame or worry. I doubt anyone would argue for these and would begin to notice a problem in their view.

If anything, I'd only agree with the monogamaniacs as far as marriage being between 2 people, but that doesn't prohibit how many marriages one can have at the same time. If a husband sought another wife, he would just start a second marriage. Then all those other Scripture comes in regarding why did God promote poly-love (like with Jacob and his two wives), give some instructions on how to manage polygamy rather than saying to leave it since it's a sin, and why did God portray Himself as a polygamist in Ezekiel (chapter 23, I believe)?

 

[Tlaloc]

The Adam and Eve thing is spurious, but I think there are better ways to handle it than talk about race. Strictly speaking Adam and Eve where the same blood or species and that is something we do have to emulated based on other scripture. Plus while we can infer or guess they could be classified as the same race based in that we can assume they had similar physical characteristics that really is a bunch of conjecture, the whole of humanity can be generated by two extreme opposites almost as well as it can be by two similar middle of the road humans.

All and all isn't it kind of reducing yourself to their level of conjecture to say that there would be implicit racism?

 

[Hugh McBryde]

Ultimately, Adam and Eve are cited to show the importance of monogamy in relationships, and how "it is best, don't you think?" Besides being condescending, it is laughably wrong and illogical.

Things Adam and Eve were:

Eve was arguably Adam's genetic clone. You can easily point out that for Eve to be Eve, God has only to delete Adam's "Y" Chromosome.

Eve was married to Adam simultaneously with her creation, making her a child bride. I don't see anyone standing up and shouting they wish to duplicate this feature of Adam's marriage, while they howl endlessly to hold up the "instructive example" of their monogamy, a word by the way, that doesn't exist in scripture.

Eve was betrothed to Adam prior to her creation. I don't see Christians rushing to betroth their first daughter, prior to her conception to anyone.

Adam and Eve are also stated to be unprecedented in their nature, and in many ways, impossible to duplicate, making it silly to try to follow them in all ways unless we are specifically instructed to follow them in some example of their lives. It's obscure, but it's true that Adam and Eve are perfect. They are without sin in the Garden, and God says so in his word, saying they did not have the knowledge of "Good and Evil." in this context, we learn that not only are they perfect, but creation is over:

On the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made."

So we're done.

Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

So we must have sex, and make children.

Does anyone propose that Eve was to have millions of children personally, and that in this perfection God proposed that Adam and Eve's children have none of their own?

Right away we have differences in the way that Adam and Eve's children marry then, if we propose they are to have children of their own. Adam and Eve's children, must marry each other.

So God mandates that the Children of Adam and Eve, marry DIFFERENTLY than Adam and Eve did, marrying a creature made by Adam and Eve, coming from Eve's womb. Adam marries his clone, simultaneously to her creation. Seth marries his sister. That's a huge difference. Mandated by the order of creation.

Since we know that the first generation after Adam was to behave differently, why does anyone suggest, in the complete absence of a command to be monogamous, even the complete absence of such a word, that Adam and Eve were being held up to successive generations as an example of monogamy?

Why weren't they an example of early betrothal? Early Marriage?

As creatures, can't we argue that all of Adam's children were compelled to marry siblings so that immediate sibling marriage "is best?"

Since God later says, "Let's not do THAT anymore" to his people Israel, it's clear that some differences in marriage practice are mandated by structure, and later some are mandated by God, clearly stating that God never had any intention of us marrying exactly the way Adam and Eve did.

So where does that leave us when it is pointed out that Adam and Eve were monogamous? It leaves us with the knowledge that they were monogamous. Period.

 

[Paul not the apostle]

Not to be difficult, but do we even know that Adam was a monogamist his whole life?

And,

The A and E excuse seems to rely on the God only made "one", or there was only "one" reasonings. When I have had these discussions regarding the creation example, the New Testament examples of the Lord's Supper (don't have more than 12 people there when you do that, more would be a sin, Jesus only had the disciples in that quantity) and the "love your neighbor" (pick one, and only one, then you will have fufilled the requirement) are usually all it takes to make someone give up out of frustration, or just get mad out of frustration. Don't give more than your tithe, that would be sin.

The best talks that I have had with the other side are when I point out that if their belief were the same as God's beliefs and standards, then His Law would show that, and it shows the exact opposite.

It is also good to ask them what they think God's instructions would be to a man that had two wives. If we could hear straight from the mouth of God, what would HE say? The response is usually something like divorce, choose one, you need to repent, etc. I then read them the Duet 21:15 passage regarding inheritance, and the Exodus 21:10 passage regarding the treatment of the man's wife, showing that God's response is NOWHERE CLOSE to theirs, in fact, He says just treat them both as full, complete, lawful WIVES. Most people have no clue that those verses are even in their Bibles.

Of course, then it goes to "that does not apply", etc, etc, which usually gets me to respond with a request for a list of any other of God's Laws that are gone that I should know about, but most importantly, some that are new that I don't know about, THAT would be SCARY!

 

[Tlaloc]

So God mandates that the Children of Adam and Eve, marry DIFFERENTLY than Adam and Eve did, marrying a creature made by Adam and Eve, coming from Eve's womb. Adam marries his clone, simultaneously to her creation. Seth marries his sister. That's a huge difference. Mandated by the order of creation.

I agree, this is a more effective way of tackling the issue. And I do think Eve was Adams 'clone' with the one exception, though I admit it was not necessarily so in order for us to be one blood.

And as to what Paul said, I tend to think he wasn't, but I wouldn't bring that option to bear in an argument since it just complicates things.

 

[CecilW]

Um, does it escape their attention that Adam married EVERY WOMAN IN THE WORLD when he married Eve? Go thou and do likewise?

Their whole argument has its basis in the subconscious choice to view the story through the lens of an English (not Biblical) proverb -- Begin as you mean to continue.

But it immediately runs into all the problems mentioned above, along with putting God into a near-impossible dilemma as soon as the male:female ratio becomes other than 1:1.

I suggest that if one simply changes glasses, and looks through the lens of an equally English proverb that says "Ya gotta start SOMEwhere", paralleling the Chinese proverb that "A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step", all becomes congruent.

The book is, after all, named "Genesis". It's a simple record of the beginnings. Not "Prescriptions". While it contains the latter, they are not it's primary point.

Oh, btw, Adam knew Eve and they had one son. So, by the monogamists' logic, who was Adam to do it again? Apparently Adam didn't see "First Time" as prescriptive, but only the things God SAID: "7th day is holy. It isn't good to be alone. Take dominion. Be fruitful and multiply. Rule over her." He was pretty close to the start of it all. Guess he knew better than us.

'Sides, according to the Oral Tradition, Eve wasn't his first wife anyway, but his second; his first, Lilith, having rebelled and been cast out previous to Eve's, um, extraction.

 

[Memphis Dwight]

Cecil, that is brilliant. Even more brilliant than my observation that they were of the same
race. Adam married every woman in the world. Love it!

 

[Memphis Dwight]

To the poster that said there was no headship prior to the fall. I'm gonna have to sorta disagree with you there.
Eve was taken from Adam's body and Adam was in charge of his own body, therefor, there was hierarchy. The thing is, there was no tension in the hierarchy. That was introduced by Satan.
Remember, Satan was not satisfied with his position in heaven, and he is the father of lies, and he is the one
that put out the falsehood to Eve that deity (a promotion in power) was achievable by eating of that tree.

 

[ke4ke]

Hello,

I am new here. Glad to find it.

I have heard the Adam and Eve excuse as well. I found something very interesting. The Book of Jasher is mentioned twice in scripture that we should look at it. So I have to give it some attention. In chapter 2 it tells about Lamech and his two wives. After Lamech accidentally kills Cain and Tubal Cain he explains to his wives how it happened. They were going to leave him. However due to Adam's encouragement they stayed with Lamech. Here is the key passage.

Jasher 2:36 And the wives of Lamech listened to him in this matter, and they returned to him with the advice of their father Adam, but they bore no children to him from that time, knowing that God's anger was increasing in those days against the sons of men, to destroy them with the waters of the flood for their evil doings.

It's not inspired, but here is Adam telling the two wives of Lamech to return to him.

Hope this helps some

 

[Memphis Dwight]

Glad to see you here. I use your website all the time to inform others. I posted from it over at gcm and faithsite probably 20 times at least. That one piece about the numbers of children in the Numbers census being an average of 54 is crucial.
Are you Church of Christ?
Btw, I read about the Book of Jasher at your site and how some of the people then were against their women bearing children because of the change in their bodies. They wanted their beautiful women to keep firm bodies and they practiced some form of birth control.
Dwight

 

[PolyPride]

I've read several apocryphal and pseudepigraphal books, esp. by James H. Charlesworth The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha vol. 1 and vol. 2, and the Book of Jasher was not in any of them. I actually was considering buying the Book of Jasher a few years ago, but after I did a little research on it and the little I found reports that there are at least 2 versions of the book, and none of them predate 1100 AD. So the problem with the "extant" book (or versions) of Jasher may not only be that it's not accepted in the bible canon, but also that the there are no documented copies/manuscripts that predate the medieval times which is thousands of years apart from the events the that took place in Genesis and a thousand years apart from the manuscript copies for the books in the Bible. It's unlikely that anyone writing from the 11th century and more recent writers would know what took place thousands of years before them unless they made it up or there's some missing manuscript, which is why Jasher is in question - that and the multiple versions of it which are not identical in wording. Of course, there would have to have been an original Book of jasher, the exact one that Joshua references in biblical book of Joshua, but as far as I'm concerned, the Books of Jasher that are in circulation today are not the same ones that were quoted by Joshua and in 2 Samuel.

 

[Memphis Dwight]

Well I don't think anyone is making the case that the book of Jasher is inspired.

But as far as discrediting it because there are no mss earlier than 1100 AD is a stretch in my opinion. And here is why: People of long ago were much much more capable of preserving history by word of mouth. They didn't have typewriters and printing presses.

I don't know that every fact in the book of Jasher is historically accurate. But I don't have reason to believe that they are not. And I do think think that there is some universal truth in there especially when we read that some of the earliest societies were practicing permanent sterilization of their women so that their feminine young bodies could stay looking good longer. And what do we have today but a general hatred for those that accept God's blessings of many children?

Look at any report on the Duggars out of Arkansas that have 19 children and you'll see scathing, vituperative remarks made about them.

 

[DaPastor]

Just dropping in to make some factual declarations concerning the book of Jasher:

Modern Apocrypha, Famous "Biblical" Hoaxes by Edgar J. Goodspeed (The Beacon Press, Boston, 1956) the Library of Congress catalog card number is 56-10075

Goodspeed was a first rate Biblical scholar, professor emeritus of the University of Chicago. He made the first translation of the Apocrypha directly from Greek into English in The Apocrypha: An American Translation. He translated the New Testament in his The New Testament: An American Translation and has written a number of other books about the Bible or the history of Christian and Biblical literature.

Chapter Ten of the book discusses the book of Jasher.

According to Goodspeed there were Three medieval books name Jasher written by Jews in Hebrew as follows:

1.A 1391 version by Rabbi Shabbatai Carmuz Levita, preserved in a Vatican manuscript.
2.A book used as the introduction to the Hexateuch probably written by a Spanish Jew in the 13th century and published in Venice in 1625.
3.A treatise on Jewish ritual written by Rabbi Tham who died in 1171; it was printed in Italy in 1544.

None of these books refer to the ancient book of Jasher. There isn't a single copy of that book in the known world of literature.

Blessings

 

[PolyPride]

Just dropping in to make some factual declarations concerning the book of Jasher:

Modern Apocrypha, Famous "Biblical" Hoaxes by Edgar J. Goodspeed (The Beacon Press, Boston, 1956) the Library of Congress catalog card number is 56-10075

Goodspeed was a first rate Biblical scholar, professor emeritus of the University of Chicago. He made the first translation of the Apocrypha directly from Greek into English in The Apocrypha: An American Translation. He translated the New Testament in his The New Testament: An American Translation and has written a number of other books about the Bible or the history of Christian and Biblical literature.

Chapter Ten of the book discusses the book of Jasher.

According to Goodspeed there were Three medieval books name Jasher written by Jews in Hebrew as follows:

1.A 1391 version by Rabbi Shabbatai Carmuz Levita, preserved in a Vatican manuscript.
2.A book used as the introduction to the Hexateuch probably written by a Spanish Jew in the 13th century and published in Venice in 1625.
3.A treatise on Jewish ritual written by Rabbi Tham who died in 1171; it was printed in Italy in 1544.

None of these books refer to the ancient book of Jasher. There isn't a single copy of that book in the known world of literature.

Blessings

DaPastor,

shhhh, I'm working on a Book of Jasher myself. I NEED the money.

 

[Memphis Dwight]

And like I said earlier, no one here is trying to make the case that Jasher was inspired like say, the book of Judges. Its just that it contains some good historical references that are useful in understanding some of the things that went on back then. Same with the book of Enoch. It is not inspired but useful and fairly accurate historically speaking, eh?

 

[PolyPride]

And like I said earlier, no one here is trying to make the case that Jasher was inspired like say, the book of Judges. Its just that it contains some good historical references that are useful in understanding some of the things that went on back then. Same with the book of Enoch. It is not inspired but useful and fairly accurate historically speaking, eh?

We can all agree that it's not accepted as an inspired book, but what you're leaving out is the validity of its history, and NOT just by going by what it says since anyone can say anything but also by MANUSCRIPT evidence. Sure the stories may sound nice and is a good bedtime story but do you have any evidence to support that any of these stories are true? Here's one I'd be willing to accept because it's nearly on the same level as the manuscript evidence for the Bible, but do you have any evidence that the "extant" book of Jasher was derived from an ancient or a manuscript that's contemporaneous to the Bible manuscripts we actually have (or that could be determined to be derived from when scholars believe that the NT and OT were written) rather than it being derived from MEDIEVAL times?

There is more than one book in history that have been given the title, the Book of Jasher but they have been also written by different people and at different times.We can say that different writers wrote their own version of a history and attributed it to Jasher, but I find that alone to be a red flag because which one do you go by?. The whole logic behind the pseudepigrapha is that writers would write about things that involved people or historical events that have to do with the Bible, but they also falsely attributed their writing to a biblical figure, lets say Jasher or Adam and Eve, so that people would be more intrigued with it and would accept it more, especially as being from the person the author attributes it to. It's equivalent to me writing a story that would fit in with the Bible, like perhaps extra details of what went on in the Garden of Eden (although there are already books out there that have done so, First Book of Adam and Eve and Second Book of Adam and Eve, The Life of Adam and Eve, etc.) and to make it seem more authentic I of course attribute it to Jasher or Adam and Eve. Of course, nowadays we have manuscript evidence and textual criticism to determine the dating, style/syntax, original language, etc of historical documents.

Life of Adam and Eve http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_of_Ad ... am_and_Eve

First Book of Adam and Eve; Second Book of Adam and Eve. You can read these two stories online and they're in a book called The Forgotten Books of Eden.


----------------------------
There's probably more historical "believability", for the Book of Enoch (and there are more than one, I've read all 3 of them published in James H. Charlesworth book, The Old Testament Psuedepigrapha vol. 1 and vol. 2) since there are manuscripts for it that date to the 1st century BC and I believe even before then.

 

[Memphis Dwight]

The thing about the book of Jasher is that it is not gnostic at all. Now if it were, I would be totally on your side of discounting it. Any book that employs outright myths, such as Adam was first married to Lilith, or that the angels had sex with the humans, are complete lies. But the truth of the matter is that the line of Seth and the line of Cain began to marry and this made God angry . This little understood fact is not brought out in the modern churches because of its spiritual connotations for today. Today we may not be so gung ho about putting our children into public schools or being unequally yoked in other matters with pagans and unbelievers if we took that truth (re: the sons of God and the daughters of men) to heart.. and the story of the tower of Babel has relevance today as well but is so often swept under the rug.

Eclecticism was complete around the middle of the 1700s. Textual criticism after that point hit a brick wall and the soft minded Anglicans began to pedal their stupidity. Vaticanus and Sinaiticus were rediscovered but they were phonies to begin with. Yet the masses fell for this and the reputation the bible had for credibility took a hit that is still with us today.

 

[DaPastor]

And like I said earlier, no one here is trying to make the case that Jasher was inspired like say, the book of Judges. Its just that it contains some good historical references that are useful in understanding some of the things that went on back then. Same with the book of Enoch. It is not inspired but useful and fairly accurate historically speaking, eh?

Not only is it not inspired, it is not the same book. The book of Jasher that we have today is a "total made up book". This book isn't even close to the book referred to in the Bible. It is a myth and a fantasy to suggest it is anything more. The Historical" references in the book of Jasher today are NOT historical. They are made up by the author. It is equivalent to the book of mormon in regards accuracy.

Blessings, my friend

 

[Memphis Dwight]

You've got to be kidding me. There are many many historically accurate
parts of the book of Jasher. And many that shed light on other parts of the bible.
Here is one example.

This reminds me of Josephus. Though he was a great historian, he believed in the myth of the angels having sex with men. Doesn't mean I'm going to discount all of what he wrote though.

Wayne Simpson is an expert on the matter.

DaPastor, do you have anything new to say or are you just going to simply repeat what you've already said?