Bible Synapse
Was Adam or Eve to blame for the first sin?
Hard question · Acts and the letters · raised by 1 of the lists sceptics circulate
See the passages joined in the interactive mapThe passages
“By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin”, and so death passed upon all men.
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
Adam was formed first; “Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression”.
For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.
Eve took the fruit and ate, “and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat”.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
The objection
Romans says that sin entered the world through one man, Adam. First Timothy says that Adam was not deceived, but the woman was, and she fell into transgression. One passage seems to lay the first sin at Adam’s door, the other at Eve’s.
The answer
Genesis says that both sinned. Eve took the fruit and ate, and gave it to her husband, “and he did eat” (Genesis 3:6). God called each of them to account and passed judgment on each (3:9–19). Neither of Paul’s statements denies this. They answer different questions, and the same apostle wrote both, so he did not see them as rivals. He also wrote that “the serpent beguiled Eve” (2 Corinthians 11:3).
In Romans 5 Paul asks how sin and death came to the whole human race. His answer is Adam, because Adam stands at the head of mankind as Christ stands at the head of a new humanity: “as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22). The command about the tree was given to Adam before Eve was made (Genesis 2:16–17), and Paul’s whole argument compares two men, Adam and Christ (Romans 5:14–19). Speaking of the ‘one man’ through whom sin entered does not clear Eve. It names the one whom God held answerable as head of the race.
In 1 Timothy 2 Paul asks how the sin came about. Eve was deceived, as she herself said: “The serpent beguiled me” (Genesis 3:13). Adam was not deceived; he ate knowing what he did. That makes him no less guilty, but rather more. Gill, on this verse, says that because Adam sinned wilfully, with full knowledge, ‘his sin was the greater’, and that by it death passed on all men. Paul even uses the same word, ‘transgression’ (parabasis), for Eve’s fall in 1 Timothy 2:14 and for Adam’s in Romans 5:14. So Eve was deceived first, Adam sinned with open eyes, and Adam, as head of the race, brought death on all.
Other answers Christians give
‘With her’
Some point out that Genesis 3:6 says Adam was ‘with her’, which suggests that he stood by while the serpent spoke and did nothing to keep the command he had been given or to protect his wife. The text does not say how long he had been there, so this is an inference, but it fits Paul’s placing of responsibility on Adam.
Still open
Why Paul draws on the story of the fall in 1 Timothy 2:11–15, and what that passage asks of churches today, is much debated among Christians. That debate is about the application of the passage, not about whether it conflicts with Romans 5.
From the classic commentators
he knew what he did, and he knew what would be the consequence of it, the death of them both; and inasmuch as he sinned wilfully, and against light and knowledge, without any deception, his sin was the greater: and hereby death came in, and passed on all men, who sinned in himJohn Gill, Exposition of the Bible, on 1 Timothy 2:14 (1746–1763)