their mother, the Biblical Eve. They are to have inherited her guilt and cunningness. As a result, woman are viewed, in this tradition, to be untrustworthy, morally inferior, and wicked. Childbirth and menstruation is often considered their punishment for the guilt of their eternally cursed sex. The negative impact of the Bible’s Eve is seen in many of the most important written works of Jews and Christians. In the Old Testament, one finds:I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is a net to catch and whose hands are fetters. He who is pleasing to God may escape her, but the sinner she will entrap...I have found one man in a thousand worthy to be called upright, but I have not found one woman among them all.(Ecc.7:26-28)One then reads in the Apocrypha, “There is nothing so bad as a wife; may the fate of the wicked overtake her...Sin began with a woman, and because of her we all die”(Ecclesiasticus 25:19,24). The Biblical Eve’s sin has caused Christians to believe that Jesus Christ’s mission on Earth resulted from Eve’s disobedience, which brought mankind into sin. Therefore, it is the belief that Eve is responsible for Adam’s sin, the “original sin” of all of humanity, and the death of the Son of God. In short, one woman caused the fall of humanity. If it is believed that all woman have inherited Eve’s guilt and guile, then how are they to be viewed? The answer: like sinners. St. Paul said in the New Testament that women should learn to be quite and submissive. He said that he did not permit a woman to teach or have authority over man, for silence is what suits her best. St. Thomas Aquinas said that women were defective and even the reformer, Martin Luther, said that women had no other benefit to the world than child bearing. Again and again, one sees the degeneration of women because of the image of the temptress, which is owed to the account of Genes...
