Eve: Mother of All

Genesis 2: 7-9; 15-25

Many church services on Mother’s Day focus on the celebration of our mothers and stories of exemplary women in the Bible and in our lives. The very first woman, however, gets very little attention, especially on Mother’s day, and as the first mother, doesn’t she deserve some attention? At least a phone call or a letter?

Now, there’s a lot of stuff about Eve that we don’t find written in Mother’s Day cards. This is, after all, the woman who screwed everything up for us by introducing sin into the world. How are we to say “Thank you” to that? Do we buy her pink roses and bring her pancakes in bed?

Eve, is, of course, the first woman, the first wife, the first mother. Hers is the first story of a woman interacting with God and the earth, the first woman finding her way in this strange world.

She’s gotten a bad reputation, and we women have gotten a bad rep because of her. I’d like to take a closer look and see if perhaps she’s been blamed unfairly.

Because she is famous for that incident with the forbidden fruit, her legacy is not that of the beloved matriarch. She is not the revered essence of dignity, obedience, elegance, discretion. Her portraits are not demure and regal.

Let’s take a look at where our story starts to turn
[Read Genesis 3:1-8]

The text says that “the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal the Lord God had made.” Two important notes here: the serpent is really smart and sneaky, AND is a creature that God has made. How many times have we heard that the serpent was really the devil? Note that the text, literally, has no mention of supernatural evil.

The snake is just a snake. But he also speaks in a language Eve can recognize. If this were the Bible according to Harry Potter, we could suggest that this is a form of parseltongue. If you’ve noticed in folklore or fairy tales, a talking animal is sometimes a trickster—a character who is meant to playfully, or perhaps malevolently, mess with the order, for the sake of stirring things up or making things interesting.

The snake may be clever, but he never lies—every word from his mouth is true. The snake speaks truth and entices the woman with wisdom. And changes the way the world works.

If we go with the idea that the serpent tricks Eve who then tricks Adam, we suggest that God is also a trickster: one who wishes to disturb the order of the world. Then God is to blame for sin as God gives the man the woman, and plants the tree with the fruit, and creates the serpent.

[read Genesis 3: 9-23]

This passage and common beliefs about it are so crucial for us because they outline the relationship between men and women, the relationship between human beings and the earth..

As Adam has dominion over creation, he also has dominion over Eve. Along this line of thinking, all men have dominion over all women. This idea is seen as the natural, created order. As the way God intends the world to be, no questions, no criticism. The subordination of women becomes a punishment.

Since Eve’s lips are the first to touch fruit she is the easiest to blame. Many theologians, writers, and persons of faith have suggested that Eve is to blame because she first eats the fruit, and then gives it to Adam to eat, bringing about the entire downfall of the human race down on her head, proving, for the very first time, that women are good for nothing but trouble. In Christian writings we find Eve’s action to be the foundation and justification for the secondary role that women have held in society for centuries. The fact that some of the early church leaders and modern theologians are quick to place such harsh blame on the woman demonstrates their allegiance to male-centered ideas. They are anxious to acquit Adam of his responsibility and eager to read negative ideas of gender into the text.

To demonstrate: In 1 Timothy 2, Paul writes: “I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor” (1 Tim 2: 12-14). Many church denominations today hold this verse as the main reason that women are not allowed to be ministers or have any leadership roles in the church.

Furthermore, Early church fathers, like St. Augustine Bishop of Hippo attacked Eve’s character. Augustine insisted that she used “feminine cajolery” to get Adam to eat the fruit. He claims that she tempted and corrupted and persuaded and cried and pouted and sided with the devil in order to get her husband banished out of the garden. She was a temptress. She was vain and proud. She wanted to be a goddess.

Though Paul sees Eve as the first sinner, Eve is not so easy to blame. Remember, Eve and Adam do not have knowledge of good and evil at this point in the story. They don’t have the skills to understand disobedience until they eat the fruit. They are caught in a circle in which they cannot discern good or evil until they have committed the “evil” act. Given all of the wisdom that Eve has at the moment, she makes a perfectly sound decision. She does not act out of pride or vanity or out of a desire to “be like God.” Like the passage says, she took the fruit when she determined that “the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise.” She reaches the fruit in a desire for health and knowledge, things we generally identify as positive, not sinful.

Adam blames both Eve and God. He acts as if he were fine all by himself but then God created woman and all paradise is lost. Even though Adam was the only person present when God gave the command to avoid the tree of knowledge. God had not created or even imagined Eve. Adam does not protest when Eve gives him the fruit. Then Adam accuses God for giving him the woman. And God also curses the man “because you have listened to the voice of your wife.” We can hope that God is criticizing Adam for listening to another human voice instead of to the divine command, but the text isn’t clear.

The story of Genesis 3 does indeed explain the imperfection of the world, the pain, and the inequality of the sexes . However, that inequality has been present before the disobedience and the punishment, when woman was created secondly, as an unequal assistant to the man—After Adam has named and excercised authority over every living creature. After God has decided that a giraffe might not be a suitable mate afterall. The value of men over women appears right there within the garden walls as part of God’s created order. This makes it very difficult to argue for women’s equality from any Biblical perspective.

So what do we do now? Should we agree with Augustine and Paul that women are not nearly as good as men?

We can never separate our sacred scriptures from the cultural, political, social contexts that formed them over the centuries and finally wrote them down. Misogynistic ideals were already embedded in their culture, much like they are in ours. Ideas they already had about women dictated the portrayal of Eve as everything that was immoral, scandalous, and distrustful about women. Those cultural ideas were also present when this portion of Genesis was written.

We can agree with Genesis, Paul, Augustine and others and suggest that women are limited in authority, power, equality: that we are created to reflect the image of men more than to reflect the image of God. Or we can realize the hierarchy of power that permeates so many levels of reality, including the writing and organizing of the Bible.


Because we view men and women as fundamental opposites, so we view other members of our human family on a hierarchical scale. We can justify the position of some as superior simply by accident of birth. The split between genders demonstrates a deep divide in all humanity. We reach a new level of coexistence and wholeness as women come to be valued equally to men.

We can find both scriptures to relegate women to a lesser level of humanity, but also ones that elevate all human beings equally. We must hold all of this in tension and look for God in the midst of human words. If we go back a chapter in Genesis, we get to the first account of the creation of humanity. In this account, God creates men and women at the same time. God creates them in God’s image, blesses them, and declares this creation to be good: “So God created humankind in the divine image . . . male and female God created them.” Genesis 1: 27. If we flip way ahead, to Galatians 3:28, we read of the new reality in Jesus: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”

Thanks and Praise be to God.