EVE is the name given in the early Yahwist narratives of the Creation and the Fall to the wife of the first man (Heb. hawwah, meaning uncertain = life, clan, or snake). The story goes that Yahweh, finding his man dissatisfied with the merely vegetable world in whose midst he lived, determined to create a suitable companion for him. His first attempt was made along the lines which had produced the man ; i.e., he modelled clay into various shapes, brought them to life, and introduced them to the man. At the sight of each creature as it came before him, the man uttered an exclamation, which became the creature's name, but the exclamations showed that none of the experiments was suc cessful in providing what the man most needed. Another method was then adopted. Throwing the man into a hypnotic and anaesthetic slumber, Yahweh took from him a rib (carefully mending again the spot whence it was taken) and built this into a woman. The man's exclamation on seeing her proved the success of the method, and the narrator adds a comment ex plaining that this event is the origin of marriage (Gen. ii. 18-24). In Gen. iii. it is the woman who is more exposed than the man to the wiles of the serpent, and she falls into sin, dragging her husband with her. Her punishment lies in sexual attractions and subjection, and in the pains of childbirth. After the notice of the birth of her children (Gen. iv. 1, 2, 25) there is no further allusion to Eve in the Old Testament.
In post-biblical Jewish literature Eve is not infrequently men tioned. There is a reference in the Book of Tobit (viii. 6, 7), and there are new details in the Book of Jubilees (ch. iii.), while the Targum of Jonathan and Philo both add to the story. In the New Testament the comment in Gen. ii. 24 is cited as illustrating the true nature of marriage, and there are references in 2 Cor. xi. 3 and I Tim. ii. 13. In Christian theology the narratives are used chiefly in connection with the doctrines of Man and of Sin. (See ADAM.)