Genesis 3-9

When Eve was tempted to eat from the tree and God stated that "I [He] will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee", the feminist in me completely freaked out and felt insulted by this. Is the bible a main reason why women suffered for years (some still do) for being considered less than men, being tied to household chores and staying uneducated? Why was Eve the one to be tempted by the snake? Why couldn't it have been Adam? The bible must have been a major influence in the world and it must have contributed to a woman's place in society. Being less than man for being tempted by a snake and than tempting her husband. As if all women were so interested. I am surprised by the way God, the merciful, would treat a woman. But also, she had the responsibility of being the first woman ever, so maybe God had the right to begrudge her for screwing up. And what about the snake? Was the snake ever punished? Or did it just escape and hide back in the tree like cartoon villains do? I don't think people treated snakes badly in the middle ages because of what the bible said (even though they probably were mistreated, their ghastly appearance is enough).

Adam and Eve, commit sin after sin, what kind of an example are they to humanity? That if we make mistakes we'll end up like them? We are like this because of them. Their next mistake was Cain. They must have been telling themselves every day, "Why couldn't Cain have been like Abel, hard-working and friends with God?". That probably made Cain bitter. But he repented and generations of Adams and Eves followed until we got to Noah.

I simply cannot understand the Bible sometimes. In my way of seeing things, you can't just kill humanity because there was some "evil" in it. There was bound to be. Adam and Eve, the tree, the snake, remember? But then, suddenly, God found the perfect man? So it was all going according to plan with Noah. But what I don't understand is, if God destroyed man, wasn't it to remove evil from the world? There is plenty of evil, Noah probably had evil in him. I wonder if it is odd that all of this makes no sense to me and I don't find all of the lessons here to be good lessons. I don't believe humanity can reach perfection. Imperfections are a part of what man is. Don't you need imperfection to be absolutely perfect, too? Well, at least it "grieved him at his heart."