Eve a virgin?

[RamistThomist]

PiV = sexual intercourse. I abbreviated human body parts. I = in.

You mean coitus. Sexual intercourse has a much broader range of meaning.

Coitus. Correct.

 

[RamistThomist]

I'm reading Heppe's Reformed Dogmatics and on page 422 he says that Eve was a virgin up through the fall of man.

Is this common knowledge and can we necessarily conclude this?

I have read parts of Heppe and am familiar with his format. Besides quotations from other divines, does he have evidence for his position?

 

[ChristopherPaul]

Why does the Fall need to happen before conception/birth of Cain?

The offspring of Adam are not sinful only because they were concieved in sin or committed acts of sin.

The offspring of Adam are sinful because they participated in the sin comitted by their federal head/representative, Adam, thus breaking the covenant of works.

If Eve and Cain did not sin, and if Cain was not concieved in sin, they would still have participated in the sin of Adam due to his Federal Headship.

I am not sure if I read it in [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Infant-Baptism-John-P-Sartelle/dp/087552429X"]Sartelle's[/ame] pamphlet on baptism or Larry Edison's ([ame]http://www.crownandcovenant.com/product_p/ds125.htm[/ame]) pamphlet on baptism, but one of them mentioned that we are conceived in sin which explains why Christ was not conceived by a descendant of Adam but by the Holy Ghost or else He would have been born with the same sinful nature as the rest of us. The point being, it is not the act of committing sin that makes us sinful but that we are conceived in to the same sinful nature that causes our wills to be at enmity with God.

 

[SRoper]

Did sex before the Fall always result in conception? I think even periodic infertility is a result of the Fall, so I would have to say yes. Did Cain have to be conceived in sin? If so, then it seems Eve was a virgin.

Did a woman have periods before the Fall? Would that change your statement?

It's difficult to speculate on pre-Fall biology, but I don't think women had periods before the Fall simply because I find it difficult to believe that there would be infertility then. It's not a position I hold very strongly at all.

 

[RamistThomist]

I don't think I would label the body not being reprodcutively receptive 3 weeks of the month as infertile. Infertile is more long-term. Plus one can also view the period as part of nature's cycle, or something like that.

 

[DMcFadden]

"Nakedness" often carries the connotations of sex in Hebrew (duh) . That Adam and Eve were "naked" and NOT ashamed implies, to me anyhow, that Adam did more than "examine the menu" in the pre-lapsarian kitchen. That Eve did not conceive prior to the fall is not a problem. Don't some of you guys have kids? Conception does not inevitably follow intercourse, even for fertile couples. One may "permit conception" for a month or two before it actually happens. Three of my kids were conceived on the second month of "permitting conception," one on the first month, and who knows about oops?

 

[SRoper]

I don't think I would label the body not being reprodcutively receptive 3 weeks of the month as infertile. Infertile is more long-term. Plus one can also view the period as part of nature's cycle, or something like that.

Perhaps you are right. It does seem a bit strange though that God would give the command "be fruitful and multiply" and yet Adam and Eve only had sex out of season.

 

[RamistThomist]

I don't think I would label the body not being reprodcutively receptive 3 weeks of the month as infertile. Infertile is more long-term. Plus one can also view the period as part of nature's cycle, or something like that.

Perhaps you are right. It does seem a bit strange though that God would give the command "be fruitful and multiply" and yet Adam and Eve only had sex out of season.

Not at all. My knowledge of female anatomy is open to correction, but I see no reason--and certainly no evidence from the text--to think that a period is a result of the Curse of sin--perhaps the discomforts associated with PMS, but not a period itself. And if it is not a result of the Fall--as I see no reason to believe it is--then it is safe to conclude that there were certain seasons where Eve would not be "reproductively receptive."