Eve is our go-to girl when it comes to casting blame for sin entering the world. In some ways, fair enough. She added to God’s commands. She ate the fruit. She wanted knowledge outside of God and she took it for herself. That shouldn’t—can’t—be overlooked.
And yet, Old Testament associate professor and author Carmen Joy Imes posits that “Eve’s story has grown over time so that our wary assessment of her is often based more on tradition than on the Scriptures themselves.” In doing so, we pattern ourselves after Adam, who pointed the finger at Eve when God confronted him about his sin.
Eve’s reputation as rebellious is fitting. “We’ve been living with the consequences of her transgression ever since Eden,” Imes writes. “Might we even resent her?”
Imes reminds us that Eve is no exception to the truth that a single moment of failure does not fully define a person. God’s response to Eve makes this clear, as he promises Eve, just after she has sinned, that her offspring will bruise the head of the serpent.
“By the end of the story,” Imes writes, “rather than the source of evil, God presents Eve as the source of redemption.”
When we are tempted to resent Eve, or even ourselves for our sinful choices, may we remember that in the very moments after sin entered the world, God spoke the story of redemption to come.
