The Original Sin

Written by Maya Greenberg, New Members Director | Illustrated by Filip Jawdosiuk, Staff Illustrator and Designer

“Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and fl esh of my fl esh; she shall be called

‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.’”1 Adam and Eve’s fall from Eden is depicted as humanity’s original sin, with a man being led astray by a woman. Eve’s mortal fl aw was her ability to turn away from God and be seduced by temptation, and she brought Adam down with her. At least, that is the way the story is often told.

Overtime, the retellings of The Creation story proved to have heavily gendered themes. In his teachings, St. Augustine would equate Eve, a symbol for all women, as an example of “carnal lust.”2 Eve’s temptation by the serpent was not just a way of ignoring God’s commands; the apple was also a metaphor for sexual desire. Since Eve was a woman, she was more capable of being led into temptation, and her sexuality could manipulate Adam into turning from his faith and succumbing to the Devil. St. Augustine believed the story of Adam and Eve was the beginning of disorder among the human race and depicted sexuality as an inherently female quality that would lead men astray. The story goes that because Eve did this to Adam, women now have painful childbirths and will suff er for their femininity.

Despite cultural conceptions and misogynistic historical analyses, the story of Adam and Eve is much more than Earth’s fi rst story of a female seductress. It should be read as a story revealing the equality between men and women. Eve was taken from a rib in Adam’s side, showing men and women to stand side by side, on equal footing. It is also a story about Eve rejecting the authority from which she was born into and breaking her role as simply a wife to Adam. She thirsted for knowledge, to explore and learn as Earth’s fi rst woman.

As American lawyer Clarence Darrow stated, “Do you, good people, believe that Adam and Eve were created in the Garden of Eden and that they were forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge? I do. The Church has always been afraid of that tree. It still is afraid of knowledge. Some of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas. So does whiskey. I believe in the brain of man.”3

When Eve picked the apple and became aware of her nakedness, she opened a new door for all women. Although described by many as a seductress and the original sinner, what Eve really did was bring the gift of knowledge to all people, and show her independence as the fi rst woman. ■

1 Genesis, 2:22–24 2 Barrett Lee C., “Augustine and Eve,” Bible Odyssey, Nov. 3, 2022. 3 Darrow Clarence, “GoodReads,” n.d.