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Amber Parker

Ms. Akers

Honors English 9

19 October 2017

The narrative of Adam and Eve is the inaugural human story of the ongoing events that

comprise the Bible. They were the first humans who walked on planet Earth, and they were

Gods creation. Eve was the first woman and she lived a happy, care-free life alongside her

husband Adam. Although she began living a effortless, uncomplicated life, everything changed

when Eve ate fruit from the Tree of Knowledge after God distinctly told her that fruit from that

tree was forbidden. She was met with suffering after betraying the wishes of God and from then

on, Eve and her descendants would suffer for her disloyalty. In the book of Genesis, Eves

suffering served as a way to explain why men and women undergo some of the hardships of their

lives.

After Eve ate the fruit from the tree, she and Adam were banished from the the Garden of

Eden and they had to live on their own without Gods assistance. God was angry that Adam and

Eve had disobeyed his rule and therefore he had to punish His children. God was trying to

teach the lesson of obedience, restraint, and accountability. The Lord God banished him from

the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he had been taken (19). When Eve and Adam

were removed from the prized garden, they learned how to fend for themselves without having

everything provided for them. With nothing but the clothes on their back, the first man and

woman learned how to hunt for food, find and build shelter, and survive in the wilderness that
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God had created for them. When the couple learned how to fend for themselves, it reflected on

how people are now able to take care of themselves.

After God discovered what Adam and Eve had done, he was filled with rage and he

released his wrath on the couple and the tempting serpent who persuaded Eve to try the

forbidden fruit. First, God cursed the serpent by regulating him to only crawl on the ground. He

then cursed Adam and Eve and gave them challenges that now reflect on the way that life is lived

by people today. I shall give you great labor in childbearing; with labor you will bear children.

You will desire your husband, but he will be your master (19). God curses Eve with a painful

childbirth and he makes men the ruler over women. Eve suffers through these curses as she

gives birth to two sons, Cain and Abel, and lives with her husband as her master constantly. To

this day, painful menstruation and childbirth are still referred to as the curse.

Adam was another one of the humans who ate the fruit from the forbidden tree and he

suffered the consequences as well as his wife. ...the earth will be cursed. You will get food from

it only by labor all the days of your life...you will eat of the produce of the field, and only by the

sweat of your brow will you win your bread.Dust you are, to dust you will return (19). God

tells Adam that since he had listened to his wife and eaten from the forbidden tree, that he would

now have to work for all of his food. No food would be provided to him like it was in the Garden

of Eden, but he would need to till the ground and plant the seeds if he wanted to eat. At the end

of his speech, God also states to Adam that he will return to the earth where he was created,

meaning that Adam will eventually die and return to dust.

Adam and Eve both had to abide by Gods punishments. The two had to live with the

curses that God had put upon them, and they had to learn how to live by themselves, without the

protection of the Garden of Eden sanctuary. The struggles that Adam and Eve lived with are used
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as a way to explain some of the same struggles that modern day people have today. This

fundamental story in the Bible is one that sets up the rest of the narrative in that God asks man to

obey his rules, not to question his wisdom, to be responsible for ones actions, and to live with

the consequences of ones transgressions.