At first the intention was to create two separate people; but in the end Adam and Eve were created as one for God saw that only through this could there be peace between people.”

"First to be cursed was the serpent, thereafter Eve, and finally Adam.” (Babylonian Talmud, Eruvin 18a)

In the fifth chapter of the book of Genesis the text states: "Male and female He created them.” Yet in the first chapter of Genesis it is written: "God created Man in His image.” This textual incongruity is explained by the Talmudic sages as the difference between Divinity’s intent and his actual creation. God intended to create two human beings but ultimately created one. It is not a small distinction, and an examination of what seem to be two separate creation narratives in the text has offered theologians an infinite number of problems and resolutions throughout history.

Taken as mythos, the story of man and woman’s creation may be seen as a giant fairy tale, an ancient fiction which symbolizes the beginning of human tenure on earth. Taken as a religious truth, the co-creation of Adam and Eve points to the difficulties, anxieties, and sinful nature that inured within God’s first creatures, from the very moment of their terrestrial existence.

Who was Chava (Eve)? The Hebrew means "life-giver,” which has literal truth, since Eve nursed the whole world. But Chava, in its Aramaic form, also denotes a "serpent,” and indeed, a serpent did entice the first female creation. It is an image that has been sustained throughout history - the seduction of Eve which led to both her and Adam’s fall from grace and expulsion from the Garden. And yet Adam and Eve’s fate is inextricably intertwined. As one creation neither could fully blame the other for sinning; indeed, as God either knew or would soon learn Himself, sinning, doing evil, not obeying the word of the Lord, were as indigenous to the human condition as Adam and Eve’s specific body parts. After Eve gave Adam the forbidden fruit, the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized together that they were naked.

Giving up the earthly paradise, though Biblically tragic, was ultimately what distinguished Adam and Eve from all the other creatures. By eating of the Tree of Knowledge, Eve had inadvertently displayed the independence of thought that would characterize human behavior from that moment onward. Woman and man could now discriminate between good and bad, a quality not possessed by cattle and beast. At the same time, if man and woman were to eat from the Tree of Life and so obtain earthly immortality, they might spend all their days pursuing gratification instead of developing their spirits and performing good deeds. Thus Eve, who preceded Adam in knowledge of good and evil, shared with her co-creation the fate of all humanity to follow: to live and to die in pursuit of knowledge and the good, and avoidance of evil. As in the case of our historic first couple, the result has been a mixed blessing.