“Christians” Teaching First Woman Named Adam?

Here is more documentation from Christians for Biblical Equality, teaching that the first woman in the Garden was named “Adam” before sin. The speaker teaches here that Adam sinned when he gave the woman a different name, “Eve”, as if God intended for them to both be named “Adam” forever!

Wayne Grudem gives the correct explanation for Genesis 5:2 to combat this feminist androgynous misinterpretation. Wayne Grudem explains: God named the human race “Man” not “Woman.” Because the idea of naming is so important in the Old Testament it is significant to notice what name God chose for the human race as a whole. We read, “When Gid created man, He made them in the likeness of God. Male and female He created them, and He blessed them and named them Man when they were created.” (Genesis 5:1-2) The word that is translated Man is the Hebrew word, adam. But this is by no means a gender-neutral term in the eyes of the Hebrew reader, because in the four chapters prior to Genesis 5:2, “adam” has been used many times to speak of a male human being in distinction from a female human being…Does this make any difference? It does give a hint of male leadership, which God suggested in choosing this name –Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth (Grudem), p. 34, 35.

So, God is referring to “Mankind” in Genesis 5:1-2. However, here is documentation on what CBE is teaching (quoted verbatim from CBE tape: “0 Curses; Genesis 2 and 3”, by Dr. Joy Elasky Fleming; ACK612; http://www.cbeinternational.org/ ) on how God never intended for Adam and Eve to have different names; God never cursed the woman, and the CBE teacher calls the wording of the New American Standard Bible translation “dyslexic”, comparing the NASB translation of Genesis 3:16 to the “serpent”. In the attempt to expose the true teachings and spirit of this movement, please consider the following quotes verbatim from the CBE tape:

“How many of you know the name of the woman who lived in the Garden of Eden before the Fall?”

“What was her name? Her name was Adam.”

“Turn in your Bibles to Genesis 5:2… At creation God called the name of the man and the woman Adam; if you said, Eve, she was given that name later by the man in Genesis 3:20, after he had sinned, so this is the fall(en) (or fall of) man who gave her that name. And as we’ll see during the course of our study, um, it wasn’t exactly a positive thing. God had not asked him to give her another name, but it was, I think it represents on his part a distancing of himself from the woman, by giving her another name.”

Next we have the CBE lecturer teaching there are no curses from God on the woman:

“I think we see the loving nature of God here in the midst of the most horrible of human tragedies here in the Garden of Eden, God takes the concern to explain to the woman and the man some things that they will want to know, um, and He doesn’t uh, He does not at this point return to Adam’s angry words, um, but He does pick up on the correctness of Eve’s words and builds on those… Um, it says in the New Testament that the woman was deceived, and we saw that, God confirms that she was deceived…and so God curses because of the deliberate nature of the actions of the serpent and the man, but not on the woman, and um, that’s clear in the text.”

The following quotes the CBE speaker comparing the word order of the NASB to the ways of the serpent:

“Now, um, there’s, I am going to kind of explain to you a little further how more confusion has entered into the text…translators  have taken…the first seven Hebrew words, and they have kind of tossed them all up in the air and stirred them all around and changed the word order. Changing the word order is a serious problem. Um, I noted as I studied the text that that’s what the serpent did when he quoted God’s words in Genesis 3:1-5.”

(People ooh)

 “…that is the same grammatical construction…and so uh Satan’s use, the serpent’s use of those words, creates quite a stir literally, and that’s what we have in these mistranslations of Genesis 3:16…the mistranslations that many of us have, my NASB translates it, um, I like to call it dyslexic, a dyslexic translation.”

 Now, we hear the CBE speaker call Eve the “mother of all living” and Adam “the father of death”:

 “…and He (God) says it to the woman, and He says it as an alert: Be careful, you have a desire for your husband as before, but he’s not the same man you used to know in Eden, where everything is harmonious, because he will attempt to rule over you. And that is what he proceeds to do, as soon as God leaves, in 3:20…he gives her a different  name, and it’s his way of saying we’re not going to have the same name; we won’t be related, I’m separating myself from you. And um God had spoken of life and children to her; He had spoken of him (Adam) returning to the dust and death, and so he names her (Eve) the mother of all living, and he’s kind of the father of death. My husband thinks that he (Adam) was kind of upset at this point, and he was saying, ‘Well you’re the mother of all living, and I’m the father of all death.’”

(Audience laughs).

The CBE lecturer then teaches that it was a sin on Adam’s part to give Eve a different name and tells us that God did not curse either the man or the woman, but the “sinful disorder” was all Adam’s fault with no blame given to Eve:

“It’s a hostile act to kind of act on a name that God had already given and to change that…By the way God lovingly curses neither the man nor the woman, whom He had created and blessed at creation, so that was God’s design, but the sinful disorder that devolved here was the man presuming to oust God from the picture and to rule over the woman, and that’s what we see here, and I would just like to read a quote in conclusion. Phyllis Trible described it this way: Distinctions within one flesh became oppositions. Division followed yielding opposite sexes. To defend himself, the man turned against the woman and betrayed her to God (in 3:12). Yet, according to God, she still yearns for the original unity of male and female. For your man is your desire. Alas, however, union is no more; one flesh is split. The man will not reciprocate the woman’s desire; instead, he will rule over her. Thus, she lives in unresolved tension, where once there was mutuality, now there is a hierarchy of division. The man dominates the woman to pervert sexuality; her subordination is neither a divine decree nor the female destiny. Both their positions result from shared disobedience. God describes this consequence but does not prescribe it as punishment.”

"It says it well, doesn’t it? Yeah."

(People clap)

“This ends on a sad note, but I would like to end on a positive note and say that Christ redeemed us from sin, and we’re not destined to have to follow sinful patterns, but we can live our lives in victory, and God has given us that power in Jesus Christ, praise God!”

Someone says, “Amen” and audience claps and asks for copies of notes.

The Evangelical Feminists may find a kindred spirit in Dan Brown’s Gnostic potboiler, The Da Vinci Code, on pages 125, 320-321, 341-342, and 444. Sadly, these pages are reminiscent of the teachings of Christians for Biblical Equality, including CBE’s Sacred Feminine teaching of calling God “mother”. Consider this spiritual parallel between CBE and the pagan popularity of the spirit of the goddess and the rise of androgyny in our culture through the following quotes:

 “The church had a deceitful and violent history… The days of the goddess were over…every faith in the world is based on fabrication….The pendulum is swinging. We are starting to sense the dangers of our history…and of our destructive paths. We are beginning to sense the need to restore the sacred feminine.” –The Da Vinci Code, pp. 124-125, 341, 444

“Compared to ancient Roman feminism, the present expression is an avalanche that sweeps all before it.  Feminism is the most powerful movement of change in Western society during this recent revolutionary period. Feminism is not all bad. It brought some excellent changes to our society—an added respect for women and their giftedness, a clear identification of male chauvinism, a new sensitivity to various forms of abuse, and a need to define very carefully what we mean by patriarchy. However, movements, like swords, always have two edges…sexual perversion of androgyny is not an incidental footnote of pagan religious history, of mere passing interest, but represents one of its fundamental ideological commitments.” –Peter Jones, Capturing the Pagan Mind, p. 46,157; (Broadman and Holman Pub.)

They promise to give us a new message at CBE, and they are holding true to their word to continue to surprise us with teachings that are “new”, obviously inspired from a spirit in opposition to the Holy Spirit.

“My sheep hear my voice” John 10: 27 “And a stranger they simply will not follow…” John 10:5

Dwayna Litz

© Lighting The Way International

By Dwayna Litz Click here for bio and archived articles