Eve
In Genesis, the first woman, made as a partner for the man. She and her husband eat from the forbidden tree and are sent out of Eden. Her name is explained as mother of all the living.
Genesis tells that God made the woman from the man’s rib, because no partner was found for him among the animals (Genesis 2:18–23). In the Fall the serpent speaks to her; she eats from the forbidden tree and gives the fruit to her husband (Genesis 3:1–6). Afterwards the man names her Eve, “because she would be the mother of all the living” (Genesis 3:20). She is the mother of Cain, Abel and Seth (Genesis 4:1–2) (Genesis 4:25). Genesis does not record her death.
The New Testament names her twice, in letters that bear Paul’s name: as one deceived by the serpent (2 Corinthians 11:3), and in an argument from the order in which the man and the woman were made (1 Timothy 2:13–14). From the second century Christian writers set her beside Mary. Irenaeus writes that the knot of Eve’s disobedience was untied by Mary’s obedience (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.22.4).
In the timeline
- undatedThe Creation
Genesis opens with God making the heavens and the earth in six days and resting on the seventh. It then tells how the first man and woman were made and placed in the garden of Eden.
- undatedThe Fall
In Genesis the first man and woman eat from the tree God had forbidden and are sent out of the garden of Eden. Paul later reads the story as the entry of sin and death into the world, which Christ’s obedience reverses.