January 9th, 2026

For my humanities class the lecture was giving us information about the book of Genesis. We have to read the first three chapters of it, not for religious reasons as this is not a theology class, but because of its gender dynamics.

First we began with key terms that we will have to master as we move through this course:

The difference between sex and gender

Original Sin (how all of humanity was condemned to being born in sin and forced to reconcile with God due to Adam and Eve)

Querelle des femmes/Woman Question

Renaissance Humanism

Sex and gender binary/dichotomy

The garden of Eden story from Genesis is important due to it being the foundational story to the three monotheistic creation stories. It provides answers for why hums are here (not literally unless you are religious), why we live in an imperfect world, why we have to struggle and seek reconciliation with god, and why men and women are different. It is also a story that is referenced in pop-culture all the time. This is when she proceeded to show screenshots from different media like the Simpsons and Star Trek, also Ricky Gervais (we did not watch his bit, thankfully).

There are three interpretations to the Genesis story but we only got to two of them for this class. The first one is the egalitarian reading, which applies to chapter one of genesis. This interpretation looks at God creating male and female in his image at the same time. It was simultaneous creation rather than one after the other. It also sees both Adam and Eve as blameworthy rather than just one of them being the sole offender of the first sin. It blames the rational male mind and the female sensual body. They sinned differently but equally. Augustine of Hippo had this interpretation.

The second reading, and the last one we got to today, is the hierarchical reading which applies to chapter two of Genesis. Adam was formed from the dust of the earth and god’s breath. He was ordered not to eat from the tree of knowledge (proto-feminists say that is why Adam is the one who broke the divine commandment). It was only when Adam felt lonely did God create Eve from his rib as a “helper.” Adam gave her a name and saw her as the “flesh of [his] flesh.”

We then looked at the motives of why Adam and Eve went against God. Eve had two reasons, the superficial which meant she ate the fruit because it looked good, and the more “sinister” in that the fruit gives wisdom and awareness of good and evil. Seeking knowledge is a masculine trait and thus Eve wanting it is unnatural and deviant. So Eve is either a silly woman seeking frivolous pleasure or a rebel seeking knowledge—the text says she is both. There is no insight into Adam’s motive, he is just kind of there and eats the fruit when Eve gives him it. He is reactive and unthinking. He just takes the fruit from her even though he technically knows better. He was the one told by God to not eat that specific fruit and yet he does it anyway.

This is where class ends. Also fun fact which you probably already knew, but the fruit that comes from the Tree of Knowledge is not an apple, it is just a generic fruit, but for some reason pop-culture depicts it as being an apple. I wonder why that is.