Hebrew. ‘Delight’. Name for the garden of God, where he put Adam and Eve, the first man and woman whom he had created, to dress it and to keep it, and specifically commanded them not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. After disobeying, they were expelled from this place.

Epistles

Twenty-one Christian letters, many written by the Apostle Paul and known as Pauline epistles, that consist mostly of counsel and instruction to the early Church. The term comes from the Greek word epistole (επιστολή), meaning ‘letter’ and referring to a usually rather formal and elegant writing directed or sent to a person or group of persons.

Erasmus

See Desiderius Erasmus.

Eve

English interpretation of the name that Adam gave to his wife, who was made from one of his ribs, in order to create a suitable companion for him. In Hebrew she is named Hawa (חַוָּה‎), meaning ‘Life’ or ‘Living’, because she would become the mother of all the living. The statement that she was created from one of Adam's ribs has long been an issue of controversy, often fueled by the popular misbelieve that women indeed have a rib less than men. Women and men both have twelve pairs of ribs. And this is not contradictory, as the Bible doesn’t say anything about how many ribs Adam had before or after the procedure, nor about how many ribs Eve had. The assumption that women had more ribs than men was seemingly made without checking. And even if Adam ended up with a rib less, that would not imply that his children would have missing ribs too, no less than that the children of a person with an amputated body part would be born with body parts missing! Besides this, since the ribs are the closest to the hearth, the text might also be interpreted metaphorically. Through the cunning temptation of the serpent she violated the commandment of God by eating from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which she gave also unto Adam. Consequently, both were expelled from the garden of God.