Adam and Eve
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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| - | :''[[forbidden fruit]], [[woman]], [[man]]'' | + | :''[[forbidden fruit]], [[man and woman]]'' |
| [[Adam]] and [[Eve]], the [[first man]] and [[first woman]], respectively, according to the [[Book of Genesis]]. | [[Adam]] and [[Eve]], the [[first man]] and [[first woman]], respectively, according to the [[Book of Genesis]]. | ||
| == Narrative == | == Narrative == | ||
Revision as of 20:28, 12 October 2009
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Adam and Eve, the first man and first woman, respectively, according to the Book of Genesis.
Narrative
The biblical story of Adam and Eve is told in the book of Genesis, chapters 1, 2 and 3, with some additional elements in chapters 4 and 5.
In Genesis 1 God creates humans "male and female" in His image, and gives them dominion over the living things He has created, and commands them to "be fruitful and multiply."
Genesis 2 opens with God fashioning a man from the dust and blowing life into his nostrils. God plants a garden (the Garden of Eden) and sets the man there, "to work it and watch over it," permitting him to eat of all the trees in the garden except the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, "for on the day you eat of it you shall surely die." Then God creates the animals, attempting to find a help-mate for the man; but none of the animals are satisfactory, and so God causes the man to sleep, and creates a woman from his rib. The man names her "Woman" (Heb. ishshah), "for this one was taken from a man" (Heb. ish). "On account of this a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his woman." Genesis 2 ends with the note that the man and woman were naked, and were not ashamed.
Genesis 3 introduces the Serpent, "slier than every beast of the field." The serpent tempts the woman to eat from the tree of knowledge, telling her that it will not lead to death; she succumbs, and gives the fruit to the man, who eats also, "and the eyes of the two of them were opened." Aware now of their nakedness, they make coverings of fig leaves, and hide from the sight of God. God, perceiving that they have broken His command, curses them with hard labour and with pain in childbirth, and banishes them from His garden, setting a cherub at the gate to bar their way to the Tree of Life, "lest he put out his hand ... and eat, and live forever."
Genesis 4 and 5 give the story of Adam and Eve's family after they leave the garden: they have three children, Cain, Abel and Seth, as well as other sons and daughters, and Adam's lifespan is 930 years. ("The woman" is given the name Eve in the closing verses of Genesis 3, "because she was the mother of all living"; Adam gets his name when the initial definite article is dropped, changing "ha-adam", "the man", to "Adam".)
