[3] She decides to eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil after she hears the serpent's argument that it would not kill her but bring her benefits.

Christian churches differ on how they view both Adam and Eve's disobedience to God (often called the fall of man), and to the consequences that those actions had on the rest of humanity.

The Catholic Church by ancient tradition recognizes Eve as a saint, alongside Adam, and the traditional liturgical feast of Saints Adam and Eve has been celebrated on 24 December[4][5] since the Middle Ages in many European nations, including Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, and the Scandinavian nations.

[6] Hawwāh has been compared to the Hurrian goddess Ḫepat, who was shown in the Amarna letters to be worshipped in Jerusalem during the Late Bronze Age.

Notwithstanding its rabbinic ideological usage, scholars like Julius Wellhausen and Theodor Nöldeke argued for its etymological relevance.

[10] Gerda Lerner postulates that the story of Eve's creation from Adam's rib may have originated in the Mesopotamian myth of Enki and Ninhursag.

The traditional reading has been questioned recently by feminist theologians who suggest it should instead be rendered as "side", supporting the idea that woman is man's equal and not his subordinate.

[17] Such a reading shares elements in common with Aristophanes' story of the origin of love and the separation of the sexes in Plato's Symposium.

[18] A recent suggestion, based upon observations that men and women have the same number of ribs, speculates that the bone was the baculum, a small structure found in the penis of many mammals, but not in humans.

After the serpent is cursed by Yahweh,[28] the woman receives a penalty that impacts two primary roles: childbearing and her subservient relationship to her husband.

After the Cain murdered Abel, Eve gave birth to a third son, Seth (Šet), from whom Noah (and thus the whole of modern humanity) is descended.

She is remembered in De Mulieribus Claris, a collection of biographies of historical and mythological women by the Florentine author Giovanni Boccaccio, composed in 1361–62.

[35] Writings dealing with these subjects are extant literature in Greek, Latin, Slavonic, Syriac, Armenian and Arabic, going back to ancient Jewish thought.

Examples of Christianized works is The Book of Adam and Eve, known as the Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, translated from the Ethiopian Ge'ez by Solomon Caesar Malan (1882)[36] and an original Syriac work entitled Cave of Treasures[37] which has close affinities to the Conflict as noted by August Dillmann.

The first woman also becomes the object of accusations ascribed to Rabbi Joshua of Siknin, according to whom Eve, despite the divine efforts, turned out to be “swelled-headed, coquette, eavesdropper, gossip, prone to jealousy, light-fingered and gadabout” (ibid.

Finally, the gravest evils attributed to Eve appear in Genesis Rabbah 17:8:Why does a man go out bareheaded while a woman goes out with her head covered?

Because they brought death into the world, they therefore walk in front of the corpse, [as it is written], “For he is borne to the grave ... and all men draw after him, as there were innumerable before him” (Job 21:32f).

However, in terms of textual popularity and dissemination, the motif of Eve copulating with the primeval serpent takes priority over her other sexual transgressions.

Despite rather unsettling picturesqueness of this account, it is conveyed in numerous places: Genesis Rabbah 18:6, Sotah 9b, Shabat 145b–146a and 196a, Yevamot 103b and ‘Avodah zarah 22b.

Eve's being taken from his side implies not only her secondary role in the conjugal state (1 Corinthians 11:9), but also emphasizes the intimate union between husband and wife, and the dependence of her to him.

She is equated with the light-maiden of Sophia, creator of the word (Logos) of God, the thygater tou photos or simply the Virgin Maiden, Parthenos.

[42] In other Gnostic texts, such as the Hypostasis of the Archons, the Pistis Sophia is equated with Eve's daughter, Norea, the wife of Seth.

[43] Accounts of Adam and Eve in Islamic texts, which include the Quran and the books of Sunnah, are similar but different from those of the Torah and Bible.

There are subsequent hadiths (narrated by Abu Hurairah), the authenticity of which is contested, that hold that Muhammad designates Eve as the epitome of female betrayal.

"Narrated Abu Hurrairah: The Prophet said, 'Were it not for Bani Israel, meat would not decay; and were it not for Eve, no woman would ever betray her husband.'"

[47][48] Analysis like the documentary hypothesis also suggests that the text is a result of the compilation of multiple previous traditions, explaining apparent contradictions.

[51] Polygenesis, the belief that humanity was descended from multiple couplings rather than Adam and Eve alone, enjoyed a brief tenure as a major scientific alternative to the Genesis myth[52] until scientific developments in paleontology, biology, genetics and other disciplines established that humans, and all other living things, share a common ancestor and evolved through natural processes over billions of years to diversify into the life forms we know today.