Eve & Adam: Jewish, Christian and Muslim Readings on Genesis and Gender

How do sacred texts define who we are and how we relate to one another as women and as men? This remarkable anthology surveys more than two millennia of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim commentary on the biblical story that continues to raise fundamental questions about men, women, and society. There are almost one hundred selections in this book, and they range widely from postbiblical interpretations in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha to three commentaries written especially for this volume. These texts demonstrate the remarkable hold the story of Eve and Adam has had on the western imagination. Though the biblical account has been invoked throughout history to justify all manner of discrimination, this book reveals an equally rich tradition of egalitarian interpretation. These texts are lively representatives of a debate that continues to animate men and women to this day.