From one of Evangelical's posts above is the following from the commentator names Barnes:
Quote:
It is not meant here that Adam did not sin, nor even that he was not deceived by the tempter, but that the woman opposed a feebler resistance to the temptation than he would have done, and that the temptation as actually applied to her would have been ineffectual on him. To tempt and seduce him to fall, there were needed all the soft persuasions, the entreaties, and example of his wife.
When it is said that "Adam was not deceived," it is not meant that when he partook actually of the fruit he was under no deception, but that he was not deceived by the serpent; he was not first deceived, or first in the transgression.
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What I think was missed here by EV was that Barnes did not say that Adam did not sin, nor that he was not deceived. It is true that the account shows the deception as starting with the woman. And Barnes indicates that this was because the woman was likely less resistance. An easier prey. But this is not stated as true. Just presumed. And even if it was true, does that mean that it is a universal truth that all women are easier prey for con men? Or was it simply true for this one woman (and surely some others but not necessarily all)?
Not stated.
But if the account must be universally true, then I guess it would be true to say that it doesn't take much to make a man do whatever a woman suggests. I have to believe that he heard the serpent even though the discussion was not directed at him. If he was going to be that much stronger an opponent, then why did he just partake when given the fruit? He knew what it was. Eve wasn't already spouting a bunch of extra knowledge she had received from the "elevation" of her mind. She gave him something that he knew all about. All too well. And ate.
When Barnes gets into diminishing Adam's sin because he was second, I am sort of floored. If there was a difference in knowledge and understanding concerning the forbidden fruit (whether the "fruit" was literal or metaphorical), his was the greater. And he partook without even saying a word. Without voicing his objections. He didn't even try to rehearse the reasons that he should not. Eve had at least done a little of that. So I am unable to find any actual difference in the sin that occurred. More like the use of the common story to make a point that was not actually present in the original.
Sort of like there being a prophecy about Christ in the near-term prophesy that a young woman would bear a son before certain events happened there in the OT. The original prophecy and what it pointed to in Christ were not identical. One was not a virgin as we know it while the other was. One simply bore a child while the other bore the Messiah, the Son of God. So if the original must be exactly as used as example in the later use, then even Matthew failed in his gospel. And probably Paul did too.
That is why so much of modern Christianity is somewhat a mess. Because they are unable to read the literature that is the Bible and understand the difference between the unimportant details in the story and the truth that is being told. The story of the fall was not to establish a hierarchy of man v women. It was to provide a brief story in which mankind through its two existing members (per the account) disobeyed the one strict order given.