The Gospels likewise ignore the Eve story as the basis of the origin of evil. They share the late Jewish world view in which human decision making, for good or evil, is surrounded by powerful demonic influences that tip the balance to the negative side. But the etiology of the demonic power is not spelled out. Hence, it is Pauline theology, with its dualism of Old and New Adam, that lays the basis for a new theological seriousness toward the story of Adam's fall. In the post-Pauline epistle 1 Timothy, Eve's secondary position in creation and primacy in sin are used to justify the resubjugation of women in the Christian Church.
Pauline theology raises the problem of sin to a dimension unknown in Judaism.
While Judaism recognizes an element of collective historical evil as cosmic powers that pull humans to bad choices, it presumes that human freedom to choose good over evil remains fundamentally intact. Pauline theology, as it came to be interpreted by Augustine and his successors, saw the Adamic fall as obliterating human freedom to choose good. Humans become alienated from their own good human potential, which must be given back to them as a gift through the Crucifixion of Christ. These myths reveal a tremendous male fear of woman's suppressed power, which, having been once unleashed, overthrew original paradisal conditions and introduced disease, mortality, hard work, and frustrating struggle for survival in place of what was ease and happiness in the midst of spontaneous plenty. It is not accidental that figures such as Eve, Lilith, and Pandora, transformed into myths of the female origins of evil, are also ancient Mother-Goddesses.