Adam and Eve

{{bronze}}[[File:Rubens Painting Adam Eve.jpg|right|thumb|165px|Feeling fruity?]]{{biblenav}}
'''Adam''', in most (but not all<ref>{{wpa|Pre-Adamite}}</ref>) [[Abrahamic religion | Abrahamic]] mythology, was the first [[human]] created by [[God]]. He was made after the [[plants]] and animals and put on [[Earth]] as boss of all of them. He started out as a sort of divine pet - psychologically interdependent with his [[Creator]] and made in God's own image.<ref><bible book=Genesis chapter=1 verse1=27/> </ref>{{efn | Compare anthropomorphised pets.}} In some extra-biblical sources, Adam was made at the same time as [[Lilith#Mythology|Lilith]]. Adam regarded himself as Lilith's master as well, but she refused to make love below him, saying they were made of the same earth at the same time and were equals. (Apparently Adam was unwilling to take a turn on the bottom.) Lilith flew off, married 
Samael
 Satan, and became the first 
vampire
 succubus, later promising to murder Adam's human children and to rape him in the middle of the night to sire her demonic horde. Eve came a bit later, presumably because Adam was getting lonely and God wanted to reward his hard work with a fuck-free fuck-buddy. They were both [[naked]] and they didn't know [[sex|what to do about that]] at first. He is also famous for liking 
pomegranates
 apples, although this seems to have [[Original sin|caused some problems]]. Eve liked them as well. That's according to God's blog, the book of [[Genesis]] (not the band).

'''Eve''' (חַוָּה‎) was the legendary first female [[human]] and Adam's wife - though the marriage-certificate has not survived. She was brought into being some time during [[Creation Week]] and initially lived in the [[Garden of Eden]] with her husband. After [[Original sin|"the fall"]], the two were exiled from the Garden and settled somewhere to the east of Eden.

Eve has taken most of the blame for the Fall of Man, since she gave Adam the forbidden fruit of sin, allegorically "tempting" Adam with her sexual presence. Historically, this has given a theological justification for the poor treatment of women in many Christian countries. (This crime and its consequences do not apply in the same way in Islam.<ref>
{{wpa | Women in Islam#Eve's role in the Fall}}
</ref>)

The myths of Eve and the entire Garden were and remain important to [[Judaism]], [[Christianity]], and [[Islam]], and the myth itself provides foundation for the way the Western and middle-Orient societies have viewed women.

In the Quran, Adam is given the name by God known as the (Adam-I-Safi) or The Chosen One.<ref>https://www.academia.edu/7170404/Shaggy_or_Shaved (Scroll down to page 12) Adam was given the honorary name of "Adam-I-Safi" meaning: THE CHOSEN ONE</ref><ref>https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/ijt/07-2_056.pdf Bottom of page 57: "Adam was God's Chosen one "Adam-Safi"</ref>

==Navel==
[[File:Albrecht Dürer 033b.jpg|thumb|right|165px|A famous rendition, [[Omphalos hypothesis|with navel]], by Albrecht Dürer]]
One curious question surrounding Adam, and 
Lilith
Eve for that matter, is whether or not they would have had navels (belly-buttons). Obviously, as they weren't born in the conventional sense, they wouldn't have needed umbilical cords (and there are cases where people don't have belly buttons because they heal up perfectly, causing some interesting results that require the attention of photoshop,<ref>BBC Magazine (2008). [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7738144.stm Who doesn't have a belly button?].</ref> but we digress). More interestingly, as they were "born" fully formed, where did they get their basic knowledge of how to operate their bodies in the first place? Newborns — essentially the human equivalent of a laptop that's just had fdisk run on it — are notorious for being malcoordinated for several months.

Supplementary curious question: how many nipples did Adam have? Why? (Hint: "... formed in the image of God ..." - Genesis 1:27.)

==Biblical myth==

===Genesis===
{{hatnote|For a detailed account, see [[Original sin]].}}
[[File:Goltzius, Eva ( Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg ).jpg|thumb|left|165px|A depiction of Eve by Eva Goltzius]]
The story of Eve is recounted in the second of the two Biblical accounts of [[Creation]], in Genesis 2-3. God, having created all the world, has crowned his achievement with [[Adam]], the first man. Adam is perfect and happy, enjoying an idyllic but solitary existence. He had no problems, except perhaps the mystery of his testicles ("What are these even ''for''?")

To help Adam in his solitude, God obligingly created all of the animals and crammed them into the [[Garden of Eden]] with the First Man. Adam gave them all names ("There are ''how'' many species of beetles?!"), but it was not enough to cure his growing loneliness.

God finally determined to make a companion for Adam, and so he caused him to fall asleep, plucked out a rib,<ref group=note>This is often claimed to be the {{wpl|baculum|penis bone}} which many male mammals have, but humans do not.</ref> and used it to create a new creature. Adam called it a "woman," and her name was Eve.<ref group=note>She is not actually given her official name until after they were cursed, but for ease of discussion, this is generally ignored.</ref>

All was well in Eden for a time. Adam and Eve are said to have been naked and unashamed, which many have interpreted to mean "celibate." They ate of the fruit of the trees, and occupied themselves with whatever is done by people who neither have sex nor cook.<ref group=note>''World of Warcraft'', we're guessing.</ref> Unfortunately, a serpent (typically seen as [[Satan]], although others have seen it as Lilith, coming back for vengeance) decided to interfere. There was a tree in the center of the garden that the couple had been instructed to leave alone — God had commanded them that they "must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

The serpent told Eve that God had forbidden this fruit because if the First Couple ate it, they would become like gods, full of knowledge about good and evil. And because the fruit was "good to the eye," and she was tempted by wisdom, Eve ate of the fruit. It is not listed what type of fruit it was, although it is popularly associated with the apple and pomegranate.

{{Rquote|right|“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”|Genesis 3:4-5}}

Eve also gave some of the fruit to Adam, and he ate it without hesitating. When they had both eaten from the forbidden fruit, ''knowledge'' came upon them, and they realized that they were naked and that this was shameful. They sewed fig leaves together to form garments<ref group=note>In some versions loincloths, in others aprons, in still others breeches.</ref> to hide their nakedness.
[[File:Limoges Sündenfall.jpg|right|thumb|200px|16<sup>th</sup> century depiction of Adam and Eve]]
God, curiously uninformed for an omniscient deity, was unable to find the humans when he went for a stroll in the Garden at twilight. God still strolled back then, having only recently been elevated from typical Bronze Age polytheism. He deduced that Adam and Eve had eaten of the forbidden fruit, disobeying his express command.

Greatly wroth, God cast the couple out of the Garden and cursed both them and the serpent. Eve was cursed with painful childbirth, and demoted from equal companion to submissive subordinate, and both she and Adam would now be mortal, subject to death and pain. God cast them out of Eden, and set an angel with a flaming sword to guard the entrance.

{{Cquote|“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."|||Genesis 3:17-19}}

Adam and Eve went out into the hard world, began farming and [[sex|copulating]], and founded the human race. And having discovered both [[Fun:Sandwich|sandwiches]] and [[oral sex]], they probably didn't feel all that much regret.

===Apocrypha===
In both the Jewish and Christian canonical scriptures, Eve's story ends without much fanfare. However, there are other references to her that have been written by Jewish and Christian authors, perhaps as blatant fiction or supposed fact. The Book of Jubilees mentions two daughters, Awan and Azura, who became the wives of Cain and Seth respectively in this explicitly [[incest]]uous variant of the story.<ref>[http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/jub/jub16.htm Jubilees IV], online text at Sacred-Texts.com.</ref> In Genesis, it is unexplained who their wives were or where they came from.

==Possible roots==

===Sumerian===
{{main|Sumer}}
Like many of the Genesis stories, the story of the Garden of Eden, and specifically Eve's role in ticking off the god, possibly has its roots in the story of Ninhursag, a Sumerian myth that preceded the Biblical tale.<ref>http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/gods/partnerships/enkininhur3.html</ref> In the Sumerian version, the goddess Ninhursag<ref group=note>Ah, for the days when women were the gods in charge!</ref> and her husband Enki happily lived in Dilmud (modern-day Bahrain), but their daughter complained that there was no available water. Enki was given the task to draw water up, but began to obsess over [[sex]] and [[rape]]d his daughter and their [[incest]]uous offspring. Enraged, Ninhursag took the semen out of them and planted it in the ground, causing eight plants to grow. Enki ate them, impregnating himself in eight of his body parts. Ninhursag saves him by taking the semen into her body and giving birth to eight children, including one (Ninti) who grew from Enki's rib.

Another Sumerian myth that parallels the story of, specifically Adam as there is no wife, is that of Adapa. The first man and priest on Earth and founder of civilization, Adapa was made mortal by Enki and was warned by him not to consume the food and water offered in Heaven, which would kill him. One day, Adapa broke the wing of the south wind following an accident, angering the sky god An. Adapa's reputation changes in front of An, who offers him the food and water of immortality as a reward, which he refuses due to Enki's instructions. An is angered again, and sends Adapa, having blew his chance for immortality, back to Earth.

The parallels are obvious. It's also obvious that the Sumerians went forward in time and copied the divinely-inspired ''true'' story of the Jews. Crafty Sumerians!

===First woman?===
Jews, Christians, and Muslims maintain that Eve was the first woman created by God according to the Bible. However some Apocryphal writings have another version of the fable. In the Babylonian Talmud (generally believed to be written between 400BCE and 200 BCE, which can be compared to the dating of the [[Hebrew]] canon around 600 BCE, and the scrolls upon which the creation story was originally invented which might be as old as 1200 BCE), God first creates a woman named "[[Lilith]]". Babylonian myths seem to associate Lilith to a race of demons. However, there are arguments made (both from the "Women ruled the world once" crowd of Eisler's fame, and the more realistic arguments made by religion scholars that have documented the demonization of female figures throughout mythic and factual history) that women who held roles of power — either mythic or real-world power — were demonized as matriarchal cultures became more patriarchal. Nevertheless, the myth of Lilith exists in several non-Biblical, [[Abrahamic religion|Abrahamic]] sources such as ''Song of the Sage'', a book found among the [[Dead Sea Scrolls]],<ref>[http://jewishchristianlit.com/Topics/Lilith/ "Lilith in the Dead Sea Scrolls"], Jewish Christian Literature</ref> suggesting she might have been part of the mythic stories about Eve to explain the existence of people other than the Israelites.

==Eve as symbol==

===Scapegoat===
To many, the biblical story of Eve has had a single purpose: to blame woman for the fall of mankind. Eve caused original sin by acceding to temptation and eating the forbidden fruit, and then brought Adam into her sin by offering some to him. Eve was foolish and sinful, and by extension so are all women. Thus, a fanciful myth becomes the justification to subjugate an entire gender.

It is important to note two things about this scapegoating of poor Eve:
# In the actual story from Genesis, Eve is not a great temptress. In fact, she does no tempting at all; she just hands Adam the fruit. The idea that she is a "temptress" comes predominantly from oral tradition and later interpretation, which sought to put the greatest possible blame on the "inferior" woman.
# Despite this, God does blame Eve and specifically relegates her to secondary status. The injustice comes right from the top.

Eve is blamed for the Fall of Man and has been depicted throughout time in a historical dualism as the "evil" side of [[woman]], with [[Mary (Mother of Jesus)]] as the "good" side of [[woman]]. Why Eve should get the blame doesn't make much sense, as until she [[original sin|ate the fruit]] of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, she couldn't possibly be held accountable for her actions, as she did not yet know good and evil. The [[God]] of the [[Old Testament]] has a lot to answer for. YHWH is, indeed, "arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully," according to [[Richard Dawkins]] in his book, ''[[The God Delusion]]''.

===Temptation===

The figure of Eve has long had connotations of temptation, in keeping with her traditional role in the story. In part, Eve represents the dark side of women and the sinful nature of man, as the first sinner.<ref>Sex, Gender and religion. J. Butler. pg 104</ref> But even further, she is a dichotomy unto herself as the embodiment of both sides of a false duality that has been established for women: the choice between ingenue and fallen woman. For much of history, women were seen in one or the other of two roles:

# virginal Eve in the Garden, a figure of virtue and innocence rivaled only by [[Jesus]]' mother [[Mary]]
# sinful Eve in the dust of the earth, a "used" woman whose own [[New Testament]] parallel would be [[Mary Magdalene]]

This duality resonates throughout literature, and became embedded in the social structure of Western and Middle Eastern society, justified by myth. A woman's value was defined by her sexual status.

==Gender confusion==

In contrast to the clear dichotomy of traditional male and female roles in the Fall, we find:

<blockquote>In both the Bible and the platonic doctrine of the [[bisexuality|androgyne]], Eve appears as an excision of the first being, which integrated sexual duality.<ref>
{{cite book
| last1 = Cirlot
| first1 = Juan Eduardo
| author-link1 = Juan Eduardo Cirlot
| translator1-last = Sage
| translator1-first = Jack
| title = A Dictionary of Symbols
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=-ECFg1a_6bgC
| edition = 2
| location = Mineola, New York
| publisher = Courier Corporation
| publication-date = 1971
| page = 4
| isbn = 9780486425238
| access-date = 2016-11-15
| quote = }}</ref></blockquote>

==Mitochondrial Eve==
{{main|Mitochondrial Eve}}
There was a very real sort of "Eve," called the Mitochondrial Eve, who lived around 150,000 years ago. Every living [[human]] can trace their matrilineal ancestry to her, although this is more of an artifact of genetics than any mark of personal importance for this anonymous ancestor. She probably lived in [[Kenya]] in the {{wpl|East African Rift|Great Rift Valley|.}}<ref>http://www.raceandhistory.com/cgi-bin/forum/webbbs_config.pl/noframes/read/665</ref> It should be borne in mind that there is nothing lastingly special about her, as the identity of the Mitochondrial Eve inevitably changes over time with changes in population (specifically in our DNA).

==Y-chromosomal Adam==
{{main|Y-chromosomal Adam}}
In genetics, Y-chromosomal Adam is the most recent male human who all living male humans are patrilinearly descended from. He is the male counterpart to Mitochondrial Eve. 

==See also==
*[[Garden of Eden]]
*[[Original sin]]
*[[Omphalos hypothesis]]
*[[Pseudolinguistics#Adamic|The "Adamic" language]]

==External links==
*[http://www.thebricktestament.com/genesis/the_garden_of_eden/01_gn02_04-05.html The Brick Testament: The Garden of Eden]
==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note|2}}
==References==
{{reflist|2|90%}}

{{biblebox}}

[[Category:Biblical figures]]
[[Category:Old Testament]]
[[Category:Prophets]]
[[Category:Christian mythology]]
[[category:Sexism]]

Categories: Biblical figures, Old Testament, Prophets, Christian mythology, Sexism