Adam and Eve

[3] They also provide the basis for the doctrines of the fall of man and original sin, which are important beliefs in Christianity, although not held in Judaism or Islam.

[9] In these chapters God fashions "the man" (ha adam) from earth (adamah), breathes life into his nostrils, and makes him a caretaker over creation.

The poetic addresses of the chapter belong to a speculative type of wisdom that questions the paradoxes and harsh realities of life.

[17] The woman is willing to talk to the serpent and respond to the creature's cynicism by repeating God's prohibition against eating fruit from the tree of knowledge (Genesis 2:17).

[33] The woman receives penalties that impact her in two primary roles: she shall experience pangs during childbearing, pain during childbirth, and while she shall desire her husband, he will rule over her.

[17]: 18 [35] Abruptly, in the flow of text, in Genesis 3:20,[36] the man names the woman "Eve" (Hebrew hawwah), "because she was the mother of all living".

[42][17]: 18 [43] God exiles Adam and Eve from the Garden and installs cherubs (supernatural beings that provide protection) and the "ever-turning sword" to guard the entrance (Genesis 3:24).

[44][45] Genesis 4 narrates life outside the garden, including the birth of Adam and Eve's first children Cain and Abel and the story of the first murder.

[47] According to the Pseudo-Philo, Adam and Eve's male children were: Eliseel, Suris, Elamiel, Brabal, Naat, Zarama, Zasam, Maathal, and Anath.

And Adam and Eve's female children were: Phua, Iectas, Arebica, Sifa, Tecia, Saba, and Asin.

This achieved something like its current form in the 5th century BCE,[49] but Genesis 1–11 shows little relationship to the rest of the Bible:[50] for example, the names of its characters and its geography – Adam (man) and Eve (life), the Land of Nod ("Wandering"), and so on – are symbolic rather than real,[51] and almost none of the persons, places and stories mentioned in it are ever met anywhere else.

[51] This has led scholars to suppose that the History forms a late composition attached to Genesis and the Pentateuch to serve as an introduction.

[52] Just how late is a subject for debate: at one extreme are those who see it as a product of the Hellenistic period, in which case it cannot be earlier than the first decades of the 4th century BCE;[53] on the other hand the Yahwist source has been dated by some scholars, notably John Van Seters, to the exilic pre-Persian period (the 6th century BCE) precisely because the Primeval History contains so much Babylonian influence in the form of myth.

Other rabbis suggested that Eve and the woman of the first account were two separate individuals, the first being identified as Lilith, a figure elsewhere described as a night demon.

In Genesis 2:7 "God breathes into the man's nostrils and he becomes nefesh hayya", signifying something like the English word "being", in the sense of a corporeal body capable of life; the concept of a "soul" in the modern sense, did not exist in Hebrew thought until around the 2nd century BC, when the idea of a bodily resurrection gained popularity.

Several early Church Fathers, including Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius of Caesarea, interpreted the Hebrew "Heva" as not only the name of Eve, but in its aspirated form as "female serpent."

As well as developing the theology of the protoplasts, the medieval Church also expanded the historical narrative in a vast tradition of Adam books, which add detail to the fall, and tell of their life after the expulsion from Eden.

These are continued in the Legend of the Rood, dealing with Seth's return to Paradise and subsequent events involving the wood from the tree of life.

Regarding the real existence of the progenitors – as of other narratives contained in Genesis – the Catholic Church teaches that Adam and Eve were historical humans, personally responsible for the original sin.

This concept of an atemporal fall has been most recently expounded by the Orthodox theologians David Bentley Hart, John Behr, and Sergei Bulgakov, but it has roots in the writings of several early church fathers, especially Origen and Maximus the Confessor.

In Mandaeism, "(God) created all the worlds, formed the soul through his power, and placed it by means of angels into the human body.

"[69] In Islam, Adam (Ādam; Arabic: آدم), whose role is being the father of humanity, is looked upon by Muslims with reverence.

In Some Answered Questions, 'Abdu'l-Bahá rejects a literal reading and states that the story contains "divine mysteries and universal meanings".

[84][85] Analysis like the documentary hypothesis also suggests that the text is a result of the compilation of multiple previous traditions, explaining apparent contradictions.

[97] John Milton's Paradise Lost, a famous 17th-century epic poem written in blank verse, explores and elaborates upon the story of Adam and Eve in great detail.

C. L. Moore's 1940 story Fruit of Knowledge is a re-telling of the Fall of Man as a love triangle between Lilith, Adam and Eve – with Eve's eating the forbidden fruit being in this version the result of misguided manipulations by the jealous Lilith, who had hoped to get her rival discredited and destroyed by God and thus regain Adam's love.

Eve gives birth to Cain and Abel, and Adam forbids his children from going beyond the waterfall in hopes Father will forgive them and bring them back to Eden.

Later, when an elderly Eve tries to speak to Father, she tells how Adam continually looked for Cain, and after many years, he dies and is buried underneath the waterfall.

In Ray Nelson's novel Blake's Progress the poet William Blake and his wife Kate travel to the end of time where the demonic Urizen offers them his own re-interpretation of the Biblical story: "In this painting you see Adam and Eve listening to the wisdom of their good friend and adviser, the serpent.

Lewis' 1943 science fiction novel Perelandra, the story of Adam and Eve is re-enacted on the planet Venus – but with a different ending.