Genesis 3:16 reads, “To the woman He said, ‘I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.'”
I think that are two (maybe more) implications from this verse. They are implications by conjecture but definitely worth considering when discussing some of the big topics that we often discuss.
First, God tells Eve that he will “greatly multiply your pain.” A very common Creation vs. Evolution argument is that there was no pain before the fall. There is no clear verse that specifically says there was no pain. The problem with that is that if you multiply any number by zero – you still get zero. Now the Hebrew itself doesn’t really say “multiply.” It says something more like “increase very much” (or even more literally, “I will make many and I will make a lot your pain.” But that still supports the idea that there was pain – just not as much. Of course this is not completely conclusive but as I said, it might be something we consider when discussing whether or not there was pain before the fall.
Second, God tells Eve that he will “greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth.” This seems to indicate that Eve understood that there was “pain” associated with Childbirth. Which might also mean that she had bore children before the fall. Again, this is basically conjecture, but I think it is worth consideration. Some people might just say that Adam and Eve had a built in vocabulary. They know what God was saying, what the words meant, without the experiences associated with those words. I think that I tend to hold to that view. But that can easily be used as a cop-out.
Thoughts?
Very interesting. Never really thought about it much before, but you raise some good questions in this regard.
Lew,
I think you missed one important implication: God said this “to the woman”, which means that even after the fall God still does not require men to give birth! Thank God for his mercy!
Oh, all that other stuff is pretty interesting too.
-Alan
what about putting adam to sleep during the whole making eve process? i always assumed it was because it would hurt pretty bad to have your rib pulled out of your side, but if there was no pain before the fall then none of that would make sense. that might lean in the direction you were going. i dont know.
-Dan
Now see, Dan, I just assumed that was similar to giving a present to someone and saying, “Close your eyes” before you present it.
God wanted to surprise Adam with Eve, and so he put him to sleep and then said, “OK, now….look!” ;)
now i get it. thanks steve!