I saw this post on Facebook, and wondered what people here thought, especially in regards to female equality.
Article of Faith #2 says: “We believe that man will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression.” But, as we know from the temple and scripture, women ARE punished for Eve’s transgression. Genesis 3:16- “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.”
Why are women punished for Eve’s transgression, if we believe we should all be punished for our own sins?
Wheat & Tares 
So, is this an honest question asked in a spirit of intellectual honesty?
Or is this some other sort of question?
We claim we don’t believe in original sin, yet here we all are, suffering on Earth because Adam and Eve ate the fruit. Being cast out of the garden, cut off from direct contact with God and prevented from ever returning were the principle punishments for Adam’s transgression. Sure, we don’t teach that the unbaptised are condemned to hell because of original sin, but we all live with the consequences of a fallen world everyday. We experience the exact same punishment as Adam and Eve-we arent living in the garden of Eden, we aren’t walking and talking with God, we suffer and die-even though none of us ate the fruit. We frame this as a good thing, but it doesn’t really change the fact that we live Adam’s punishment every single day. If we claim that men are punished for their own sins, shouldn’t we all have our own Garden of Eden test?
Really, the only way to resolve the question logically is to admit that we are, in fact, punished for Adam’s (and Eve’s) sins. We might differ from other faiths in the duration of that punishment, in that we dont beleive in eternal damnation because of original sin, but we do indeed beleive in original sin. Whether we admit it or not.
I think the pain of childbirth has always been there and the story of Adam and eve was formulated to give some explanation to life.
It’s really not fair to include Genesis 3:16 without including 17-19:
“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;
“Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
“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.”
These are all conditions of mortality, not punishments. We all see the world and the gospel through different colored lenses and filters, and this is how I see it. I am not being punished for anything Adam or Eve did. I am living in a world I choose to come to and enduring the conditions of this world.
How about if we look at this outside of the perspective of rewards and punishments.
Isn’t this just a feeble attempt to explain why human birth is so painful….?
I suspect it would make just as much sense to critique “How the Leopard Got His Spots”
Well, I for one don’t think women are punished for Eve’s transgression. But, then again, I don’t believe Eve actually existed.
I suppose one can choose to interpret it in the most negative light possible and ignore the fact that the transgressions of both Adam and Eve brought mortality into this world with the joys and pains involved in it. The knowledge they, and we, gain as a result is far superior to the state of innocence they were experiencing in the garden.
According to the Genesis story, Adam is punished by having to work and toil in the hot sun to provide while Eve has the pain of childbirth. I tend to agree that this is a story designed to explain certain conditions of mortality (men are physically larger than women, women give birth but men don’t). Even so, I have often wondered at the idea espoused in the Article of Faith.
Why did Joseph Smith write that we are “punished for our own sins and not for Adam’s transgression?”
In order to distinguish LDS doctrine from the rest of Christianity, who believe mankind are born in sin. Mormons believe children are born innocent.
Mormons also believe the Fall was a good thing, and don’t really see it as a punishment, but an opportunity for growth. But that is just prophetic spin on a scriptural story that clearly understands itself as a punishment, not an opportunity, and that clearly uses Eve’s role to explain the subjugation of woman under the man. We can only run so far from our scriptures.
The transgression was a unique initial sin because the consequence was related to birth and lies of innocence and sudden knowledge. The very nature of the consequence is related to having descendents so we understand HF’s parenting experience and love better. We are not being punished for Adam and eve’s sin, we are part of the consequence and the blessing. Our experience of life was never meant to be the same as theirs. Therefore we are not being punished-we are a different plan.
It almost kind of makes sense to me that subservience to men was a consequence of the Fall, not necessarily a punishment. Just as living in a Telestial world meant food didn’t make itself, it also meant (per PoGP) procreation was possible (with accompanying pain), and that Telestial men would use their physical strength to rule over women — not because they were supposed to, but because “it is the nature of almost all (Telestial) men” to abuse their power.
However, I take the story of Adam and Eve as allegorical of man- and womankind choosing to eat of the tree of knowledge by coming to this Telestial earth; we all chose to “Fall.”
“Why are women punished for Eve’s transgression”
They are not.
I think we all do “participate” in our own Garden of Eden experience by being born. We leave the garden of our previous spiritual existence and choose to come to earth. Partaking of the fruit is symbolic of becoming mortal through birth.
As for the AofF, I think the “Adam” referred to is Adam and Eve collectively, and as mentioned by others, refers to the idea of born depravity – that because of their sin, we are condemned the moment we are born. Instead, we are condemned only to the degree that we sin against the light we have received/are accountable for.
Ditto Ken and others. Time to go back to Gospel Principles class.
I’m with #4. The temple is an attempt to symbolically portray the assumption of mortality and the journey back to the presence of Godhood. In that sense, the “rules” or “conditions” of mortality are affected by the decisions of Adam and Eve, but the end destination and the path to get there are not jeopardized by the same (i.e. there’s no “penalty”).
For me it’s a bit like the Jack Chick tracts that portray Satan and his demons rejoicing at the death of Christ–Chick gets it wrong, because Satan would have bewailed the death of Christ and the success of the Atonement, not celebrated it. The suffering is all part of the plan.
Also in my wife’s experience, pregnancy and the first year of parenthood were both vastly more punishing than birth itself. When my first kid was only minutes old, my wife said, “Wow, that was SO much easier than carrying her around for the past 9 months. Let’s do this again!” 🙂
I’m with others that say that this story is how the ancients understood why death and painful childbirth came into the world. But it seems clear to me that the ancients did perceive death and painful childbirth as God’s punishment for disobeying God. If only Adam and Eve had obeyed, doesn’t this story tell us that there would be no death, and childbirth would be easy? Even if we look at verses 17-19 in Genesis, Moses seems to blame everything on disobedience.
“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: [THEREFORE] cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
“Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
“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.”
To me, Adam is being punished because he HEARKENED. If he hadn’t hearkened, there would be no thorns, thistles, death, etc. So I don’t know how anyone can read those verses and say that the ancients didn’t understand thorns, thistles, and painful childbirth as anything except a punishment.
Now, moderns may see these as the natural products of life/mortality, but the ancients viewed them as punishments that wouldn’t have happened if Adam and Eve would have obeyed.
So, Ken and IDIAT, teach me as you would in Gospel Principles where I am wrong.
Eve is absolutely penalized- before the 1990 temple changes it was much more explicit and spelled it out. Our early mormon foremothers believed that they were under the Curse of Eve and needed to submit to their husbands to be redeemed from it. You could say that this curse is proscriptive and not prescriptive, but if that is the case, then why do women have to covenant to it? And, isn’t separation from God the very definition of damnation? And that is what has happened to poor Eve- she becomes removed one more step from God.
There are many who view Adam and Eve as not literal. I had a professor on my mission explain to me that those who believe in evolution believe that Adam and Eve weren’t necessarily the first humans, but Adam was the first prophet who believed in God, talked with God, received revelation from God. Therefore Adam is the father of mankind in the same way that George Washington is the father of this country. George didn’t father very many US citizens, but he did help found the country, and Adam helped found the true religion and the true worship of God. It also explains the giants, and sons of God marrying the daughters of men later in Genesis.
Of course biblical literalists don’t like this approach at all.
Benjamin
do you believe that just because you don’t believe something that its not true?
I dont believe that Saturn exists. it doesn’t matter how much I disbelieve it, it’s not going to change anything
We are not separated from God because Adam and Eve ate the fruit, it is because WE ate the fruit. We chose mortality. We are Adam and Eve.
I think it is important to acknowledge that, even if we choose personally to believe anything other than a literal Adam/Eve story, it is taught as doctrinally factual. I have never encountered any teaching at church or in any church related setting that acknowledges the possibility that the story is anything but fact. I personally do not believe this, but that is the doctrine we teach. And, in conjunction with that teaching, we have A of F 2. Which, if also doctrinally correct, requires some additional thought/ clarification because our lived experiences are exactly what is described as Adam’s punishment for his (and presumably Eve’s) sins.
I have thoughts about how this can be reconciled, but they are (of course) extra-doctrinal. There is no doctrine, that I am aware of, that reconciles the contradiction.
MH – I answered that way because this question presumes a fact not in evidence – Why are women punished for Eve’s transgression, if we believe we should all be punished for our own sins? As pointed out by others men are punished for Adam’s transgression because the earth was cursed for his sake. The combination of Adam and Eve partaking introduced spiritual and temporal death. Christ atoned for the transgression hence AoF 2. You can take the story of Adam and Eve figuratively or literally, makes no difference to me. End result is still the same.
What was the fact not in evidence?
Ken and Idiat and others who are being so smug about this. Can we at least acknowledge the clear doctrinal teachings in the early church that indeed directly taught that women were excluded from the priesthood and therefore subject to the governance of men precisely because of Eve’s role in the fall? Women like Eliza Snow and others specifically taught this as well as the idea that the Restoration was finally bringing this era to an end, that part of what Joseph was restoring in the Relief Society and the temple was directly preparatory to the “lifting of Eve’s curse” through women receiving priestesshood.
Any complete reading Brigham’s theology, the theology that in the end became sacralized in our temple rites acknowledges these sorts of ideas at being at the forefront of Adam-God doctrine as well at the theology he ends up building around polygamy. Look up “curse of eve” in the BY Journal of Discourses or other early church writing. There are a number of excellent Dialogue articles on this.
So the idea that it is just *obvious* that Mormon theology doesn’t teach or believe this is either simply uninformed, or if you do have fairly deep understanding of Mormon theological history, criminally dismissive. Mormon theology has actively struggled with this and related questions as to women’s status due to the fall – as has most Christianity. It was finally in the mid 1990s that we saw a clear rise in the heroic Eve doctrine which had been a strand of Mormon thought in the past but by no means the dominant strand. The iconic talk was Dallin H. Oaks 1993 talk The Great Plan of Happiness in GC which solidified the heroic Eve as a legitimate reading of Genesis. This particular version of the heroic Eve doctrine was heavily influenced by the ideas of Beverly Campbell.
So please, one word or one sentence answers that acts as if this is some sort of anti-Mormon or ignorant question is actually the far more ignorant and patently unhelpful.
We’re not CULPABLE thanks to the actions of Adam and Eve. We suffer the EFFECTS of their transgressions, which is mortality. But according to II Nephi 2:25, “Adam fell that men may be..”. It leads to speculation as to precisely WHY Elohim and Jehovah bothered to set man and women in the Garden if they weren’t able to procreate. Or were they intended to “fail”? Yet God is NOT the author of sin. And, of course, we have Lucifer (just for grins, I’d rather see the Disney cat from “Cinderella” superimposed) doing his thing, WHICH WAS DONE ON OTHER WORLDS (and wasn’t refuted, but rather sent on his way).
If anything, Paul, though in keeping with a ‘Pharisee of Pharisees” of his time would have some rather misogynistic attitudes, is letting Eve off the hook by declaring that SHE was deceived but her husband Adam was not. Condescension? Maybe. I’d rather think that the first couple was “top shelf” as far as the premortal spirits went, if not the top of the heap, save for Jesus Himself. I have little doubt that each played their respective role to the hilt, and none of us is in any position to second guess.
Sorry that was a bit brusque. My broader point is that this is legitimate and still much needed discussion within Mormonism. In fact, I would say that struggling with women’s place in both earthly governance and articulating their eternal destiny is one of the great prophetic works left to do in Mormonism. In the early church we have at least an idea of an ongoing restoration and advancement of women’s roles and place. It opens up space for us to reconcile the past with needed moves toward the future. I for one still think that in some way women ARE struggling under “Eve’s curse” throughout Christendom and the world. Not because God willed it but because man created it and has not yet risen above it.
#27 – Then you may as well say you don’t believe the Genesis account, for the Lord Himself declares the “curse” (I think of it more as a condition of mortality, where the pangs of childbirth can be indeed ‘difficult’ for the mothers-to-be, and not a punishment per se) upon Eve and her forthcoming daughters.
It would not be in a MAN’s interest that women suffer in childbearing, nor to pontificate that somehow the ‘treacherous one that can bleed five days and yet live’ brought said sufferings upon herself. At times, it boils down to the rather comedic drama played out in maternity wards throughout the world on a daily basis…”YOU did THIS to me! Don’t even THINK about ever touching me again! And, as others in the thread have pointed out, it’s also a division of labor. The husband gets to slay the dragons and bring home the bacon. As to WHOM is getting the better of the deal, to elaborate would be the supreme threadjack. Sorry, folks, the Tectontense (Alien Nation) do pass their foetus from mother to father, but until I see some massive saucer-shaped craft hovering out in the Mojave Desert, that’s just the product of an overactive imagination.
From my studies I have noticed different interpretations struck different chords with me as I was moving along my journey to “see things as they really are”. At times I’ve felt “punish”was correct. Other times “cursed” seemed literally a punishment and was absolute. simple. End of story.
But as studies, thoughts, impressions and interpretations age they, like fine wine, mellow and become more smooth, less course, blended, refined…..until they are very fine.
So saying, my views may be incorrect. But the majority views are likewise moving along on a journey as a whole. They, too must move toward further light and knowledge rather than assuming the journey was completed when Genesis and Abraham were written.
There are layers upon layers within all gospel precepts. Or, there are many twists and turns, potholes, mists, winds, rain, mud, bridges, thorns thistles and briars, knoxious weeds, and so forth as the individual and collective journey(ies) goes forth.
We have learned. We learn. There is still so much more to learn! Glory that…
Thus, the journey brings anticipation and wonderment amidst the difficulties.
Eve did THE best thing among her choices. Adam did as well. They brought forth mortality so we could come to a realm to gain knowledge through experience rather than just being told. We could not comprehend a temporal body by being told. We had to have one and live in it to “see” and “know” pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, oppression and freedom, hierarchy and equality, and a bazillion other opposites.
We left a perfect environment to gain so much more through losing so much we already had.
Individually and collectively, we journey along. But I’ve definitely learned by both sad and grand experience that further light and knowledge comes so much faster when we acknowledge we already “know” only a very small portion of what what’s out there.
And revelation only comes as we seek.
And we seek only when we believe there is more.
Thinking there’s no need for further light on any matter is Satan’s great veil of finely woven wool. He pulls it over our eyes so well we hardly know it’s there.
In the past 50 years more has been done to rend that veil than all previous time. Yet rending the veil is just the first of many steps toward the greater light. Parting the veil and entering the presence of Light and Truth is our life’s work…….or……journey. . .
“For the path of the just is a light that growth brighter and brighter until the perfect day.”
As others have said, we are responsible only for our own sins. We are not responsible for the actions of Adam and Eve. However, we do suffer the consequences of their decisions, even if we weren’t responsible for them. Men struggle with the Curse of Adam. Women struggle with the Curse of Eve. We all struggle, to one extent or another, due to the mistakes of our parents and others. Do they affect us? yes. Will we be held responsible for them? no.
I don’t for one second believe God willed women to be subject to the authority of men. I think men willed that. Putting that at God’s feet has always been wrong, is wrong and will forever be wrong regardless of what Genesis says or how people have interpreted it.
Raj,
“Ken and Idiat and others who are being so smug ”
What? How is saying women are not punished for Eve’s sins smug? I don’t follow. To me it is logical that I won’t be punished for someone else’s sin.
People are punished for others’ sins all the time. That’s part and parcel of the whole mortality gig.
Good thing we have the Atonement to smooth things out.
“I don’t for one second believe God willed women to be subject to the authority of men. I think men willed that.” Yes, exactly. Like I learned from watching Law & Order, find out who had motive and opportunity, and you’ll have your perp.
Ken,
Its not holding that stance that made it smug. Indeed I don’t believe that is truth with a capital T either. But the definitive 3 word statement with no explanation or any other effort to engage in the OP comes off as smug. It is like that guy (and it is always a guy) in gospel doctrine that feels empowered to take a teachers heart felt question for discussion and using the “of course, we ALL know the answer is this.” That is just refusing to engage at any substantive level.
I will admit that my reaction was to you and IDIAT (“people need to go back to gospel essentials class”) back to back that led to my reaction.
That said, I feel that my last comment treaded on this behavior. I did say “I believe” instead of stating it as a given fact, but still not the best behavior on my part, I acknowledge.
I guess I look at this very simply… The fall brought physical death (mortality and all its issues) and spiritual death (kicked out of God’s presence) – that was the punishment. The atonement fixes this for everyone person on this earth good or bad, in fact Adam and Eve didn’t have to repent for their transgression in the garden either (Moses 6:53). Everyone will be resurrected (become immortal) and brought back into the presence of God. So that is article of faith #2 – the atonement fixes that all for everyone. Once in God’s presence we get to answer for our own repentance or lack thereof – did we take advantage of the atonement for our own sins.
Except, the atonement doesn’t fix it for Eve. She will never again have the equality she had before the Fall. Everything she has or is promised post-Fall is “unto her husband”. This is what shocked me the most about the temple- the atonement doesn’t work for Eve the same way it works for Adam. All because she “was beguiled” where Adam had to choose between obeying two conflicting commandments.
Moss
1. a queen and priestess unto her husband is the Celestial Kingdom
2. Separate and single forever and ever
Hmmm.
In the celestial kingdom
This is why I believe the temple ceremony is wrong. It portrays gender hierarchy where I believe that is incompatible with the nature of a just and loving God. You can’t have equality where one ultimately becomes the lord and god to another. The temple sets men up as saviors of women. It’s actually pretty blasphemous to say the least.
Yes, that is exactly the problem. The hierarchy set up by the fall, whereby Eve is separated (damned) from God by her husband, who then becomes her god, is eternal. Eve is not redeemed from the fall; the Atonement is rendered only partial for her.
Do I believe this? Of course not. What kind of monster God would insulate himself from his daughters by a layer or sons? This is obviously BY talking. But it is still plainly taught in the temple, the pinnacle of LDS theology.