Extraordinary Eve

We've all heard the rhetoric: the fall of human kind is the fault of a woman. Whether or not that is accurate is not the point I wish to make today, although it may come up. I think Eve is seriously one of the most amazing women the Bible speaks of. Let's go through her story and maybe you'll see why she is one of my heroes. (I will be using the New Living Translation for my Biblical quotes.)

Genesis 1
(26) Then God said, "Let us make human beings in our images, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground. (27) So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (28) Then God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground." (31) Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good!

According to this passage, God creates Eve with Adam, both in the image of God. God blesses Eve and her husband and tells both of them to multiply, govern the earth and reign over all living creatures. Eve must have been an amazing woman. She was the first woman in a brand-new world. She was the pioneer of everything feminine. She was made Queen of the earth and Mother of all people. When God created humans, They could have picked any combination of genes and personality. They created Eve because They wanted her. She was the first choice - the first woman.

Genesis 2
(22) Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib, and he brought her to the man. (23) "At last!" the man exclaimed. "This one is bone from my bone, and flesh from my flesh! She will be called 'woman', because she was taken from 'man'. (24) This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.

According to this passage, God creates Eve after Adam, since Adam is lonely and needing a partner. When God brings her to Adam, you can hardly ignore the excitement in his words: "At last!" He declares her equal to him - bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh - and names her with the same words he uses for himself. He has seen every other creature on earth and is not satisfied with his life until he meets Eve. She must have been spectacular.

The trouble arises in their Eden paradise when the issue of the forbidden fruit arises. What is often skipped over is the fact that the direct command forbidding the fruit is only given to Adam. Eve has not yet been created and there is no Biblical record that God gave the same command to Eve. It can be assumed that Eve knew the command, since she recited it to the serpent, but the Bible doesn't clarify whether God or Adam said that to her. Further more, she doesn't recite it perfectly; she says they cannot eat or even touch the fruit. Is that her exaggeration or Adam's? We don't know.

She speaks with the serpent, debating whether or not they are allowed to eat the fruit. Genesis 3:1 says, "The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made." Eve is not chitchatting with a mewling kitten - she's debating with an intelligent creature who convinces her of an alternate opinion. The word convince itself infers that she was thinking with her own mind - it does not say coerce, pressure or force. She made the decision. She was an independent, free thinker and she wanted more knowledge and wisdom. The tree offered that, and she took that offer.

Genesis 3
(6) So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too. (7) At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness.

Can we please pause and look at the order of events here? Eve takes some of the fruit, eats it and apparently nothing happens. Then (meaning after) she gives some to Adam, who is with her, and he eats it. At the moment Adam eats the fruit, their eyes are opened. Seems to me, from what is laid out in Genesis, Eve didn't feel any adverse effects of eating the forbidden fruit until Adam eats it. So is Eve to blame? Or Adam?

Moving on, the two hide from God as They walk in the garden. God calls to Adam (verse 9) asking where he is. Adam comes out, saying he is afraid because he is naked. God then asks Adam if he ate from the tree and Adam says Eve gave him the fruit. (She didn't convince him; she offered and he ate, no questions asked.) When God turns to Eve, They don't ask her the same question They ask Adam. "(13) What have you done?" Eve replies that the serpent lied to her, so she ate the fruit. God punishes all three of them, but They (once again) only mention the tree when speaking to Adam.

The next section is very interesting to me. Genesis 3:20 says, "Then the man - Adam - named his wife Eve, because she would be the mother of all who live." Looking at these names, I see a gentle surprise. "Adam" plays on the Hebrew word for earth or dirt - adamah. "Eve" plays on the Hebrew world for life or breath - chawah or chayah. So the first man and first woman are named Dirt and Breath. Does this sound familiar? Human beings are nothing but dust until God breathes the breath the life into us. And we need both Dirt and Breath, both Man and Woman, to be human, to be alive.

Now that Eve has been cursed with a painful reproductive system, she is the first woman to have a period. There is no one there to reassure her that she is not dying. She endures a pregnancy without any advice from older, experienced women. Every day is terrifyingly brand-new experience with no friends in the world to help her except Adam, who cannot understand what is happening to her. And when the first baby is born, she goes through labor with only Adam to help her. Then Eve has to figure out motherhood on her own. There are no books with advice. She herself did not have a mother - there is no example to follow. How amazing must she have been to survive all that?

Years pass and then the moment comes when her little baby boy, Cain, kills his brother and she loses two children in one day - one to death, the other to banishment. But she does not lose hope in God. After everything that has happened - their eviction from the Garden, the punishment of modern womanhood and the murder of her son - she still believes in God. We know this because when Seth is born, she says, "God has granted me another son in place of Abel, whom Cain killed". She remembers both her boys, Cain and Abel, and the pain associated with them, but says God has given her another son to comfort her.

Whether or not you believe the first woman was the first sinner or that Eve is a character to be admired, I will always see her as a great woman. She explored and discovered the newly created earth. She thought for herself, made decisions and accepted the consequences. She suffered and survived the trials of womanhood without any feminine support. She trusted God after the murder of her innocent son and the banishment of her criminal son. She is an extraordinary woman.