The mother of all femme fatales?

In the Creation story narrated in Genesis, we meet the first two humans to have walked planet Earth: Adam, and then his wife Eve, a woman created from the rib of Adam. Their home is the idyllic Garden of Eden, where the Creator, God, has placed them.

Within this paradise is a tree that bears a “forbidden fruit”, the name given to the fruit growing in the Garden which God commands Adam and his spouse not to eat.

“And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” – Genesis 2:16–17

Eve, however, has an encounter with a serpent, who convinces her otherwise. “The serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” – Genesis 3:4–5

Scripture says that Eve saw that the tree was good for food and a delight to the eyes, so this bad girl Eve yields to temptation. She takes some of the fruit and bites into it. With this one act of disobedience, she is literally marked for death. Eve, perhaps wanting a little company in her forbidden act, then proceeds to give some of the fruit to her husband, Adam, and he eats it also.

In the conversation.com, the writer notes that Eve, after her creation, is “a voiceless, choiceless creature, while Adam makes plenty of noise about what he thinks of his new “helper” (Gen 2:18) and demonstrates his power by naming and claiming her: This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken. (Gen 2:23)

‘star of the show’

Eve’s transformation a few verses later is stark. “Our silent, biblical lady is suddenly the star of the show, chatting away with the serpent and eating the forbidden fruit. In a textual about turn, Eve has transformed into a biblical [bad girl], making her own decisions, while her husband becomes the mute companion.”

So, back to the story Adam and his wife, Eve, suddenly become aware that they are naked and seek to cover up themselves. It had been recorded earlier in Genesis that “the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed”. Now, we are told that they make clothes from fig leaves, and because of this nakedness, they hide themselves when God approaches.

Eve is described by one Bible commentator as the mother of all femme fatales and is commonly viewed as the temptress who “lured Adam and humanity to their downfall” and introduced sin to the world.

“Eve’s eating of the forbidden fruit is popularly regarded in Christian cultures as signifying the primal sin, the ‘first disobedience’, which ‘[b]rought death into the world, and all our woe’ (Milton, Paradise Lost, 1.1, 3). Allusions to the story of the Fall regularly assume Eve to be the archetypal femme fatale: she tempts Adam to participate with her in a divinely forbidden act in order to gain illicit knowledge, thus luring him to his death, and with him, the rest of humankind.” (KL Edwards)

Fr Sean Major Campbell refers to the Creation Story as a “myth”, and he explains why. “In religion, a myth is a story that is told to convey a particular meaning and value system. It is a literary device versus being a literal story. The Creation Story affirms a Judeo-Christian cosmology. It is a way of addressing some of the questions that people have always asked across cultural and religious traditions.”

Where did people come from? How did evil get into the world? Why do women have so much pain in childbirth? Why do people have to work so hard? Why does the snake move on its belly?

In essence, the Genesis myth of creation has as a chief goal: the message that God is Creator. He points out that there was no stenographer in the Garden of Eden. The storyteller therefore uses various “frills” that would have had much appeal, especially in an oral tradition where these stories were passed down by word of mouth.

a victim of condemnation

Eve, Fr Sean notes, has been a victim of much condemnation. “Of course, by extension, many religious authorities have maligned women, all women, simply by using Eve as the blueprint for the misogynistic enterprise. Let us look again, though, at what happened and also ask some pertinent questions, which must be asked in 2020. Adam and Eve were told not to eat of that particular tree in the midst of the garden. However, Eve in her conversation with the serpent, learned that the tree was also good for food and wisdom and that they would not necessarily die after eating. Apparently, the story writer did not envision that misogyny would prevail after Eve’s intelligent engagement with the serpent. It would also appear that the story writer did not envision a time when someone would ask, “Why would God wilfully place a dangerous object in the midst of a garden, where God’s children play? Which parents would give their children a play area and leave not only a dangerous item lying around, but also a dangerous serpent there?”

The story, he says, is intended for a theological lesson about disobedience: sin, and the consequences of sin. However, Eve has been seen by many as this bad girl in perpetuity and at work in all women. Maybe the time has come for an evolution in theological thought that affirms Eve’s intelligence, courage, and her autonomy in making a decision and convincing her husband to listen to her invitation to explore potential discovery.

Eve was a genuine seeker after truth. She had a healthy inquisitive mind regarding new information. She invited Adam to think, to use the gift of reason. His only response to her, was to take and eat.

How interesting that in a patriarchally driven text, a woman features so early with unquestioned influence over a man. She seizes her role as co-steward of the created order and shares valuable information with Adam. She shared the knowledge, the joy, the discovery, and yes, the consequences.

Maybe something we miss in the Creation Story, is the ordinariness of life characterised by difficult questions, choices, decisions, and conflicts of faith. The Garden of Eden is your household, your church, temple, synagogue, and anywhere you may hide out from time to time.

Eve is every person who has questions, temptations, and resolutions. She blundered in disobedience. But who hasn’t? A most redeeming quality that may also be missed in the story is the theological view that humanity is made in the image of God. This simply means that human beings have the capacity of freedom to make choices, to reason, to create, to love, and most importantly, live in harmony with creation and with God.