The Genesis of Rewriting Eden

I’ve always found the story of Adam and Eve to be fascinating. It’s filled with dualities--man/woman, good/evil, life/death--and in a lot of ways the story is counter intuitive.

God created Adam and Eve, and they lived happily in the Garden of Eden (aka paradise) in complete and utter bliss. There was only one rule in the Garden of Eden, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for the day that you eat of it you shall die.” (Genesis 2:16-17).

After being tempted by a snake Eve eventually takes a bite of the apple from the tree of knowledge and shares the apple with Adam. As a result, God exiles them from the Garden of Eden, and although they did not actually “die”, life as they knew it did.

When I first learned about the story of Adam and Eve I was about 7 years old. I wondered why Eve had broken the rules and made God angry? Didn’t she want to stay in Eden? Why did she also get Adam in trouble and encourage him to take a bite of the apple?

Eve was the original sinner, and her actions resulted in both she and Adam being punished. So the moral must be that you should be obedient otherwise there are negative consequences...right?

Not quite. And that incomplete understanding of that story has had effects on society for thousands of years, and we still see it today. But that is a topic for another day and another post.

When I read the story now, I thank God that Eve took a bite of that apple. Consider this… Eve was the original disruptor.

She may not have known it at the time, but she was taking a risk that changed everything and gave humans autonomy. She changed the status quo, and as a result is the mother of ingenuity, invention, grit, resilience and the human race. With Eve’s actions humans shifted from being the created to the creators. She was a badass and absolutely remarkable.

It’s for these reasons (and more) that I decided to start Rewriting Eden. I’m here to flip the script. Rather than reading the story as Eve being a sinner and temptress, I read it as Eve being a disruptor and liberator.

I created this blog to rewrite the story of Eden, and recognize all of the wonderful things that women bring to the world in whatever ventures they choose for themselves.

So welcome to Rewriting Eden where I will share my musings and lessons learned as a female entrepreneur and founder, mother and wife, as well as the musings and lessons of other women who have inspired me.

P.S. I’m not a religious fanatic, and do believe that this story is exactly that--a story. However, it is a story that is well known, has parallels to other stories from different cultures and societies across the globe, and has had a profound impact on how women are perceived today. It’s those perceptions that I am working to change with Rewriting Eden.