Eve’s story has frequently been seen as a tale of temptation and transgression in which she, the Bible’s first woman, takes the lead role. When we picture Eve, it is hard to avoid an image of naked female flesh, serpentine sinews, and the allure of an apple—a composite composition of hundreds of famous drawings, paintings, and sculptures made in response to Genesis 2–4.
But, this popular image of Eden and its inhabitants does a disservice to the complexities of the Garden story, which is rife with ambiguities and tensions.
After all, as much as the story is about death and disobedience, it is also about life. While humanity is ultimately cut off from the Tree of Life at the conclusion of Genesis 3, it will live on and populate the earth. The life Eve and Adam are left with after eating the Fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Bad might be one of hardship and struggle, but death is avoided. For now.
Genesis 2–4 is a story concerned with explaining the bittersweet character of the human condition and humanity’s complex relationship with God and with nature. This is powerfully represented in the strands of the text that represent Eve’s motherhood. Eve embodies the status of all subsequent humans—she is lower than God, yet above the beasts of the field—caught somewhere between divinity and animality.
In certain respects Eve comes remarkably close to God. Her exceptional role as ‘mother of all living’ (Genesis 3:20) and her boastful claim to have ‘created a man with the Lord’ (Genesis 4:1 own translation) combine to create a sense of monumental maternity, echoes of which are detected in Louise Bourgeois’sFragile Goddess. Eve, in some senses, forms part of a mythic memory in which women across cultures and time have been idolized for their maternal energy.
Yet, in the very same text of Genesis Eve’s fertile body is also marked as a site of struggle and suffering. Humanity should not, Genesis tells us, become too much like God (Genesis 3:22), and so Eve’s potential for power must have limitations. In this she is closer to her animal companions in the garden, the very animals used by Damien Hirst to create hisMother and Child (Divided). She, like them, might be able to produce life, but she too is unable to control death.
Hirst’s choice of cow and calf to represent his mother and child heightens this sense of maternal liminality: while for the viewer the cow is synonymous with life-giving milk, in order to sustain the production of cows’ milk for human consumption, the dairy industry slaughters countless calves daily. The immediate sense of powerlessness represented in Hirst’s bisected mother and calf strongly echoes the powerlessness Eve has over her own mortal body and those of her children. She may be the first mother of all humanity, but this does not allow her to escape the tragedies of parenthood.
As her sons fall victim to violence in Genesis 4, and the tension between humanity and God deepens, Eve continues to play a key role in the unfolding drama of human nature. For some later interpreters of the text, such as the artists of the Ashburnham Pentateuch, Eve’s character, both positive and negative, comes to be imprinted upon her sons and helps to explain their different natures. The prideful potential of the first woman, perhaps revealed when she celebrates Cain’s birth in Genesis 4:1, might be taken as a sign of her responsibility for the sinful side of Cain. Yet, the Ashburnham Pentateuch also reminds us that Eve gave birth to the innocent Abel.
Eve is neither the embodiment of womanly failure, nor the paradigm of female perfection in Genesis 2–4. She is a human figure who grows, learns, suffers, and survives, all the while negotiating with God.
By viewing the Bible’s first woman through this more complex lens of maternal imagery, it is possible to re-evaluate millennia of damaging traditions. In particular, by taking a closer look at the story of Eve, we are encouraged to challenge the popular Christian tradition of Eve as sexualized sinner and Mary as pure, sorrowful mother. Works of art like the ones in this exhibition open up a space of encounter between these two women, as powerful creators and as mourning mothers of innocent sons. They allow us to read the text of Genesis 2, 3, and 4 in a fresh light. They allow us to see Eve anew.
FAQs
In these texts, following her consumption of the Fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Bad, Eve becomes alienated. She is alienated from the man who is with her: he will now 'rule over her'. She is alienated from her maternal body: she will now give birth in pain.
What was Eve's curse? ›
The Curse of Eve by God may therefore be that sexual intercourse is, or at least can be, painful for women. This curse was given as punishment to Eve - and by extension to women - and the message is highly problematic. As Gellman (2006:320) states, "The story of Adam and Eve in Genesis, chs.
What was Adam and Eve's punishment for eating the forbidden fruit? ›
In the second, Adam is placed in the Garden of Eden, and Eve is later created from his rib to ease his loneliness. For succumbing to temptation and eating the fruit of the forbidden tree of knowledge of good and evil, God banished them from Eden, and they and their descendants were forced to live lives of hardship.
What was the punishment in the Garden of Eden? ›
Man and woman both eat the forbidden fruit, and neither die. The serpent was right. Thus, God banishes Adam and Eve from the garden as punishment for defying his command, and places angels bearing flaming swords at Eden's gates to ensure that neither man nor woman could ever return.
Can a woman go to church during menstruation? ›
Yes. There is no concept of ceremonial uncleanliness associated with menstruation in the Catholic church today. Why are ladies not allowed to enter the place of worship while they are on their menstrual cycle? It's something given to them by God and it actually purifies them.
What is the reason for menstruation in the Bible? ›
Scripture implicitly points to the fact that menstruation is as a result of original sin (just as the pain that comes with childbirth). It is a sign of humanity's fallen nature.
What was the sin of Eve? ›
The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that in "yielding to the tempter, Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, but this sin affected the human nature that they would then transmit in a fallen state.
What was Eve's tragic flaw? ›
From the time of her creation, when she looks in the water and falls in love with her own reflection, Eve is linked to the flaw of vanity, and Satan as the serpent will use this defect against her.
Why couldn t Eve eat the forbidden fruit? ›
When confronted, Adam tells God that Eve gave him the fruit to eat, and Eve tells God that the serpent deceived her into eating it. God then curses the serpent, the woman, then the man, and expels the man and woman from the Garden before they ate of the tree of eternal life.
What was the forbidden fruit a metaphor for? ›
The term “forbidden fruit” is a metaphor for anything that is desired but not moral, legal or permissible to indulge in. But there is more to the idea of the “forbidden fruit” than that. The forbidden fruit origin story explains much about the state of our world.
The Story of Eve
God called the woman ezer, which in Hebrew means "help." Eve was given two names by Adam. The first was the generic "woman." Later, after the fall, Adam gave her the proper name Eve, meaning "life," referring to her role in the procreation of the human race.
Where are Adam and Eve now? ›
Other rabbis suggested that Eve and the woman of the first account were two separate individuals, the first being identified as Lilith, a figure elsewhere described as a night demon. According to traditional Jewish belief, Adam and Eve are buried in the Cave of Machpelah, in Hebron.
What was Adam's curse? ›
To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, `You must not eat of it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
What was the first sin in the Garden of Eden? ›
Traditionally, the origin has been ascribed to the sin of the first man, Adam, who disobeyed God in eating the forbidden fruit (of knowledge of good and evil) and, in consequence, transmitted his sin and guilt by heredity to his descendants.
What was the sin in Eden? ›
Original Sin and the Banishment from the Garden of Eden
The two episodes are separated by the tree of good and evil, around which the serpent is wrapped. He is offering the forbidden fruit to Eve who, against the order of the Lord, will take it to eat it and offer it also to her companion.
What does Cain's punishment mean? ›
Cain lost his brother, was banished from his home, and was forced to wander the earth for the rest of his life. Yet even Cain's exile was a reflection of God's boundless mercy. After Cain murdered Abel, God allowed him to start a new life in a different place and marked him to prevent him from being killed by others.
Did God curse Eve with pregnancy? ›
One thing that is important to note is that while God cursed the serpent and he cursed the ground that Adam would have to toil, he did not curse Eve. This suggests while God caused Eve to experience pain in childbirth, he was not pronouncing a curse on Eve. There is no curse in giving birth to children.
What was the serpent's punishment? ›
Rabbinic legend holds, and it's perhaps an accurate thing, that the serpent before the temptation was an upright creature. Perhaps that is why Revelation also refers to him as a dragon. But now he is altered and cast down onto his belly. And further, God says, “Dust you will eat.”
