Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible:
Coffman's Commentary on the bible:
John Gill:
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Wesley's Explanatory Notes
John Trapp:
Thomas Coke Commentary on the Holy Bible
Matthew Poole:
Schaff's Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Ellicott's Commentary:
Many of the commentaries of the past posit an ontological difference between male and female and seem to indicate women as less discerning than men, not only as a penalty for sin, but as a creational difference between men and women.
Do we need a feminist rejection of this interpretation to correct us and make us think more biblically...or is this what the Bible really says?
Also, many of these past commentaries seem to assume that the Apostle Paul's words indicate that women are not to be superiors to men in all spheres of life, not merely the church. Now, I am not a bible commentator and most on the PB are not either....can we trust these commentators of the past to be true to Scripture...or were they merely children of their age and victim to their own peculiar cultural prejudices?
And Adam was not deceived - This is the second reason why the woman should occupy a subordinate rank in all things. It is, that in the most important situation in which she was ever placed she had shown that she was not qualified to take the lead. She had evinced a readiness to yield to temptation; a feebleness of resistance; a pliancy of character, which showed that she was not adapted to the situation of headship, and which made it proper that she should ever afterward occupy a subordinate situation. It is not meant here that Adam did not sin, nor even that he was not deceived by the tempter, but that the woman opposed a feebler resistance to the temptation than he would have done, and that the temptation as actually applied to her would have been ineffectual on him. To tempt and seduce him to fall, there were needed all the soft persuasions, the entreaties, and example of his wife.
Satan understood this, and approached man not with the specious argument of the serpent, but through the allurements of his wife. It is undoubtedly implied here that man in general has a power of resisting certain kinds of temptation superior to that possessed by woman, and hence that the headship properly belongs to him. This is, undoubtedly, the general truth, though there may be many exceptions, and many noble cases to the honor of the female sex, in which they evince a power of resistance to temptation superior to man. In many traits of character, and among them those which are most lovely, woman is superior to man; yet it is undoubtedly true that, as a general thing, temptation will make a stronger impression on her than on him. When it is said that “Adam was not deceived,” it is not meant that when he partook actually of the fruit he was under no deception, but that he was not deceived by the serpent; he was not first deceived, or first in the transgression. The woman should remember that sin began with her, and she should therefore be willing to occupy an humble and subordinate situation.
But the woman being deceived - She was made to suppose that the fruit would not injure her, but would make her wise, and that God would not fulfil his threatening of death. Sin, from the beginning, has been a process of delusion. Every man or woman who violates the law of God is deceived as to the happiness which is expected from the violation, and as to the consequences which will follow it.
Coffman's Commentary on the bible:
The argument here is that Adam was not deceived, whereas Eve was deceived, thus exhibiting a serious flaw that disqualified her from being the head, or leader. That quality of women being easily deceived is alone sufficient to justify the appointment of men as elders and evangelists, and as heads of the family. As Lenski observed on this verse, "This fact is not complimentary to women."[24] We are living in an age that exhibits a widespread rejection of God's teaching on this question, but the teaching remains clear enough.
John Gill:
ow inasmuch as the serpent did not attack Adam, he being the stronger and more knowing person, and less capable of being managed and seduced; but made his attempt on Eve, in which he succeeded; and since not Adam, but Eve, was deceived, it appears that the man is the more proper person to bear rule and authority, as in civil and domestic, so in ecclesiastic affairs; and it is right for the woman to learn, and the man to teach: and seeing that Eve was the cause of transgression to Adam, and of punishment to him and his posterity, the subjection of the woman to the man was confirmed afresh: and she was brought into a more depressed state of dependence on him, and subjection to him; see Genesis 3:16.
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Being more easily deceived, she more easily deceives [Bengel], (2 Corinthians 11:3). Last in being, she was first in sin - indeed, she alone was deceived. The subtle serpent knew that she was “the weaker vessel” (1 Peter 3:7).
Wesley's Explanatory Notes
And Adam was not deceived - The serpent deceived Eve: Eve did not deceive Adam, but persuaded him. "Thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife," Genesis 3:17 . The preceding verse showed why a woman should not "usurp authority over the man." this shows why she ought not "to teach." She is more easily deceived, and more easily deceives.
John Trapp:
Yet Adam sinned more than Eve, because he had more wisdom and strength.
Thomas Coke Commentary on the Holy Bible
1 Timothy 2:14. And Adam was not deceived,— Not first deceived. The apostle hereby seems to intimate, that the tempter chose to make his first attack on the woman, as being, even in her original and most glorious state, the inferior, and consequently less fit in future life to take the lead in important affairs. The verse may be paraphrased thus: "It is further to be recollected, that, at the fatal entrance of sin into the world, Adam was not immediately deceived by the fraud of the serpent; but that artful seducer chose to begin his attack on the woman; who, being deceived by him, was firstinthetransgression,andprevailed upon Adam by her solicitations to offend. Now it should be a humbling consideration to all her daughters, that their sex was so greatly concerned in the introduction of guilt and misery, and make them less forward in attempting to be guides to others, after such a miscarriage."
Matthew Poole:
Besides, Adam was not first deceived, nor indeed at all deceived immediately by the serpent, but only enticed, and deceived by the woman, who was the tempter’s agent; so as that she was both first in the transgression in order of time, and also principal in it, contributing to the seduction or transgression of the man; which ought to be a consideration to keep the woman humble, in a low opinion of herself, and that lower order wherein God hath fixed her.
Schaff's Popular Commentary on the New Testament
1 Timothy 2:14. (2) The woman was in that first typical history the one directly deceived by the Tempter, Adam’s sin being thought of as more against light and knowledge,’ and so ‘she has come to be in the state of a transgressor.’ The implied thought, of course, is that that greater liability to deception continues now; and this was probably strengthened by what the apostle actually saw of the influence of false teachers over the minds of women (2 Timothy 3:6-7). The history of the fall seemed to him acted over again. Comp. the position of the woman Jezebel in the Church of Thyatira (Revelation 2:20), and the false prophetesses in Ezekiel 13:17.
Ellicott's Commentary:
(14) And Adam was not deceived.—Priority in creation was the ground alleged by St. Paul as the reason why the woman was never to exercise authority over man, the eldest born of God. “Adam was not deceived;” the Apostle now refers to the general basis of his direction respecting the exclusion of women from all public praying and teaching contained in 1 Timothy 2:9-12. The argument here is a singular one—Adam and Eve both sinned, but Adam was not deceived. He sinned, quite aware all the while of the magnitude of the sin he was voluntarily committing. Eve, on the other hand, was completely, thoroughly deceived (the preposition with which the Greek verb is compounded here conveying the idea of thoroughness)—she succumbed to the serpent’s deceit. Both were involved in the sin, but only one (Eve) allowed herself to be deluded. So Bengel, “Deceptio indicat minus robur in intellectu, atque hic nervus est cur mulieri non liceat docere.” Prof. Reynolds thus comments on the argument of the Apostle:—“This may sound to our ears a far-fetched argument, when used to discountenance female usurpation of intellectual supremacy. It was, however, a method current at the time to look for and find in the Scriptures the concrete expressions of almost all philosophical judgments. At the present day we could hardly find a more vivid illustration of the essential difference between the masculine and feminine nature. If there be this distinction between the sexes, that distinction still furnishes the basis of an argument and a reason for the advice here rendered. The catastrophe of Eden is the beacon for all generations when the sexes repeat the folly of Eve and Adam, and exchange their distinctive position and functions.”
Many of the commentaries of the past posit an ontological difference between male and female and seem to indicate women as less discerning than men, not only as a penalty for sin, but as a creational difference between men and women.
Do we need a feminist rejection of this interpretation to correct us and make us think more biblically...or is this what the Bible really says?
Also, many of these past commentaries seem to assume that the Apostle Paul's words indicate that women are not to be superiors to men in all spheres of life, not merely the church. Now, I am not a bible commentator and most on the PB are not either....can we trust these commentators of the past to be true to Scripture...or were they merely children of their age and victim to their own peculiar cultural prejudices?