As a collective human element, women in Genesis often appear as obstacles to Gods broad overriding goals through noncompletion of their particular roles in the divine scheme. From the Garden of Eden right through to the story of Joseph, women, as wives, mothers, and daughters, are typically unreliable, inadequate, deceitful or, simply by virtue of their womanhood, an outright liability, and they frequently threaten to undermine God's will as it is expressed in the opening book of the Bible. God's first instruction to a human being occurs during the initial telling of the creation story in Genesis. Adam and Eve have the mutual responsibility to "be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it"(1:28). However, it is really the second narrative, detailing the creation of man and woman that establishes God's structure of the world. In this structure, Eden is created for the first man, Adam, who has one basic function, to work and guard Eden (2:15), and only one prohibition, to abstain from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge (2:16). Starting right from Genesis, in this additional description of the Eden story, tension already arises between Eve, the first biblical woman, and the divine process. Duped by the serpent, she not only succumbs and eats the forbidden fruit, but also encourages Adam to join her, thereby causing their expulsion. Thus, God is forces to confront human intractability from the very beginning of his quest, and the first instance comes from a woman, the very creature created to solidify Edenic perfection. God had intended Eden to be a self-contained universe, a paradise for Adam where he would live comfortably without toil or hardship. By disobeying, and then including Adam in her crime, Eve indirectly causes his punishment: a life that requires him to labor for his sustenance. Eve was created to be her husband's helpmate (2:20); instead she turns out to be a catalyst for his demise and the cause of humanki...
