Deleting comments is, as a rule, a bad idea. The Digg-style option to hide comments in-place, and giving the reader the option to show them, would be more useful.

Is is possible to delete the unpleasant exchanges and name calling, please?

And getting to the source is tricky when each of the actors points to someone else as a source when called to account.

Please tell me I’m not the only parent who giggles at this in the temple.

Tim, #100, that’s a very interesting point. I’d never noticed that before.

With the hierarchy and dominance issues, in LDS thought there are some reversals, as in D&C 121 and 122, as if not buying into a korihorian view is part of overcoming the world.
I find myself going for the positive spin on these things–looking for the good news.

I’m not sure what it means, mind you. In a vague way it’s kind of disturbing. It suggests multitude of issues in terms of identity. (i.e. the parallel to the naming of the beasts by Adam implying once again an unequal power)

Something else odd is that God says that the Man (Adam) is become like God. He never says Eve is.

So while I’m no feminist, I have to agree that there are some real oddities to the text here.

I bring all this up because I think there’s something to Tim’s point, but I think a bit more profound and disturbing. If Eve is getting things second hand through Adam (although the power relation isn’t introduced until after the fruit) and if Adam’s act of naming (both initially and after the fall) implies power over Eve, then the fall is about Adam’s not exercising power. And the nature of the cursing can be see as that.

Needless to say that’s a tad disturbing, and needless to say that isn’t something that is overt in LDS theology, although you can see it indirectly in various places. Mormonism has tended to go an other way with the gender relations and portray Eve as better. (Although as I think we’ve hashed out that’s difficult to see in the text, despite Lehi’s reading) Adam is weak not because he listens to Eve, but because he didn’t come up with Eve’s idea. This then culminates in the “on a pedestal” view of women which ironically is a way of eliminating power by portraying women as having more power.

So if you look at the power relations it’s all quite odd. Primarily because, as Kaimi noted, the real power behind everything is God who is definitely pulling the strings.

As for general assumptions, I am not sure what “mother of all living” would imply–if that means nurturing and intuitive?–something that could lead into stereotypes. I’m just thinking of life, itself, as a category. (Perhaps one could say Adam was intuitive about something different.) Also, I am not thinking in terms of one of them being the bad or weak one–only different in a duality sort of way. Together things become complete.

Also, the idea of curses have led into things that I would not agree with, it is true. But I think that curses coming from the Lord (not coopted by us) are not always what they seem.

Finally, the idea that the whole thing is fixed by God seems problematic. Maybe one of the main points of the story resides in that conundrum–how we do what we do independently and yet how God’s purposes continue.

#100: The idea that Eve hadn’t directly heard the command is interesting. The directness/indirectness idea can be traced further in the story, too. Eve gives the fruit to Adam, instead the serpent giving it, and Adam listens to her and not the serpent. And getting to the source is tricky when each of the actors points to someone else as a source when called to account. The issue later comes up in Adam’s sacrificing and then Cain’s sacrificing, etc.

One idea that comes from the text is that Eve never heard the Forbidden Fruit commandment directly from God Himself, most likely second-hand from Adam. You’ll notice in the text, Eve has not yet been created when the commandment is given. Also notice she adds to the commandment when approached by Satan by saying they aren’t even supposed to touch the fruit. Thus, it would be easier to disobey God if you never really heard the commandment directly from Him as Adam did.

The issue of why Eve and not Adam is interesting – and of course the feminists pick up on that. It’s hard not to miss the creation of a certain power relation. How much of that is intentional and how much simply cultural baggage I can’t say. But Eve is cursed not only to have her husband rule but to desire her husband. (And the meaning of that has been the subject of lots of analysis) Likewise the way Adam is rebuked verges upon saying that part of Adam’s sin was listening to Eve in general.

So I think the aspect of the story in terms of gender roles can’t be ignored. And I’m fully sympathetic to feminist critiques here.

Beyond that issue though I’m pretty leery to ascribe much to Eve picking rather than Adam. You can make that indicate something bad about Eve or something good about Eve (and weak about Adam). My feeling though is that the indication that the whole event is fixed by God makes the question moot. I don’t think Eve or Adam are really deserving of praise or condemnation given their state and the way things are rigged against them.