This is a guest post from Karne L. Garst who is just releasing a fascinating book called Women Beyond Belief: check it out, as it is shipping now! She recently contributed a guest post, “Christianity, Virginity and Sex“.
- Eve
Most Christians believe that God is omnipotent which means all powerful. Most also believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God with some going further to state that it is the inerrant word of God with every word being true. Given these assumptions, God had a choice in choosing a woman, Eve, to be the person to eat of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, to be the cause of original sin, and to suffer pain in childbirth. Would an omnipotent God choose half of his creation to be maligned, abused, and subordinated throughout most of human history? Couldn’t he have come up with a better story to talk about making the right choices?
Or could Eve have been chosen in this story of Genesis because this book is not sacred or the inspired word of a deity, because it was written by men who believed women were their property, and because it was used to suppress the worship of the Canaanite goddess Asherah? A tree or pillar as well as a snake, often represented Asherah, as well as many other goddesses in other religions. Both of these symbols are found in the Biblical story of Eve lending credence to this latter view.