Does the Genesis Story really portray women as the source of evil?

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I was reading the views of a feminist philosopher, Mary Daly, who wrote some criticism on Christianity. She wrote that (apparently) “since women are portrayed as the source of evil and had their origins in man (Adam’s rib), it is appropriate that they may be ruled by men”

Does her criticism hold any merit?
 
theCardinalbird said:
Does her criticism hold any merit?
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No. The Church does not teach that women are evil. Adam and Eve are both made in the image and likeness of God. God made his creation and proclaimed it “good”.

Adam and Eve both sin and are equal in this.

It is the serpent who is the tempter.
 
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When the da Vinci code was released, all manner of Catholic Church crimes against women were discussed.
It is informative to read non catholic interpretation of the Church, and Sacred Scripture, but prudent to retain the idea of uninformed ‘fiction’
 
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What exactly does she mean when she says that women are the source of evil?
 
That’s just her opinion of catholic teaching. It’s not catholic teaching though.
 
ioannes_pius said:
What exactly does she mean when she says that women are the source of evil?
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I would guess that she believes the Church teaches that Eve was the reason why sin got into the world. Though it was a group effort between her and Adam
 
theCardinalbird said:
I was reading the views of a feminist philosopher, Mary Daly, who wrote some criticism on Christianity. She wrote that (apparently) “since women are portrayed as the source of evil and had their origins in man (Adam’s rib), it is appropriate that they may be ruled by men”

Does her criticism hold any merit?
Click to expand...
No, it doesn’t. The divinely inspired story of the creation of the first man, Adam, and the first woman, Eve, and the temptation and fall in the garden of Eden is extremely rich in meaning and contains many mysteries. The creation of man before the woman makes sense in that man represents in a fashion God the Father who is the source and origin of the Trinity of persons in God. For men who beget children are called fathers and Adam is the father of the human race. The mystery of the creation of Eve from Adam’s side while he was asleep is a figure of the birth of the Church, the bride of Christ, from the side of Christ when he was pierced with a lance and out flowed blood and water, the two principle sacraments of the Church, while he was asleep on the cross. Eve became the mother of all the living and she was a figure of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the New Eve, who is the mother of all the spiritually living, those reborn into the life of grace. St Maximillian Kolbe sees the mystery of women and motherhood and pre-eminently in the Blessed Virgin as a mystery of love, for the mother is as the heart of the family and the heart represents love, and as representative of the person of the Holy Spirit in the bosom of the Trinity. For we call the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, the Spirit of Love in the Trinity and he is given to us in baptism and through the theological virtue of charity.

Eve did sin first in the garden of Eden and she gave of the forbidden fruit to Adam to eat which he did. Since Adam is the head of the human race as the first human created, we believe original sin is principally passed down to us through him so that if Adam had not ate the fruit, he would not have lost the gift of original holiness and justice and sanctifying grace to be passed down to his progeny.
As it is, both Adam and Eve participated in the Fall of the human race. The reason why the devil tempted Eve first may have been due to his thinking that he could possibly get to Adam easier this way, i.e., through his wife whom God created for him and who he deeply loved. It is possible that Adam may not have fallen to a temptation from the devil if the devil had tried to directly tempt him. So, the devil tempts Eve seeing the great love Adam had for her, she succombs, and apparently, though erroneously, Adam took the fruit from Eve so as possibly not to give her offense or something of this nature as he replies to God “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”
 
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While it’a true that Eve sinned first, and that that fact has been used historically to suggest that women are still temptresses, that is certainly not Catholic teaching. Further, note that St. Paul specifies that, though the first human sin was Eve’s, it was Adam’s sin that affected the whole human race, since all of us (including Eve, per the story) come from him. In the parallel case, no one denies that Jesus (the second Adam) is the author of our salvation, though Catholics point out that God set things up so that Mary obeyed first and paved the way for Jesus to come, thus symbolically reversing the act of Eve that preceded and paved the way for Adam’s sin.
 
Who said Genesis story show women as the source of evil ? Though it may appear that having fell into the trap of the devil and eating the forbidden fruit first eve initiated sin.But the facts are different.God told about the forbidden fruit to Adam much before eve was made.Means God directly did not tell Eve not to eat the fruit but only Adam would have told her. Secondly Adam did not show any objection or hesitation to eat the fruit when Eve offered it.So the guilt of Adam is much much more than Eve since(1) It was to Adam to whom God told not to eat the fruit while Eve was not even made(2)Before eating, Eve at least expressed a doubt and eat it only after getting a convincing reply from Satan where as Adam who had been told directly by God not to eat, chose to eat it readily.
So Adam is correctly considered as the first sinner.Poor Eves -from the beginning till now including through Mary are the silent sufferers for men’s faults .And also the ready object for being humiliated by raising unfounded doubts as raised in this post.
 
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He may have been ‘good’ in design, but it was him who led Adam and Eve astray. I think that this idea of blaming women for our sin is a crutch used as a way to avoid responsibility for our own actions.
 
I’ve never heard this concept broached before CAF, but if somebody uses the story of Adam & Eve as a crutch to avoid taking on responsibility, that person needs significant emotional help.
 
A lot can be learned about how human beings act by looking at the relationship between Adam and Eve. One moment Adam rejoices when seeing Eve and the next he blames her that he ate the fruit.

The deeper understanding of this story is given when considering that Adam is called “ha ádam” in Hebrew meaning the one who comes from earth, dust or soil (adáma). The “Eartling/Dustling” has his name changed to adám (man) when he meets “ishá” (woman) meaning “Mother of the living”. Ish is also the word for man and used in Genesis 2:23, 24 (bone of my bones etc). Adamá is also used for mankind or all human beings as a collective noun.
 
It portrays the temptations of the devil and how strong and appealing his tricks can be. But there was still free will to sin or not by Adam and Eve
 
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