Background: raised catholic for my first 16 or so years, never particularly believed in it, but have spent a fair amount of time thinking/learning about the bible in various settings. So, I have a lot of feelings on this story, though it is mainly just small details that I find interesting rather than an overarching opinion. I will probably just piggyback onto existing comments for that opinion. (Note: I am using my New Jerusalem Bible, so the text may be slightly different. It can be a bit clunky at times, but I find it to be the most readable, stripped back, and accurate version.) ------ 1. Gen 3:16, "Your yearning will be for your husband, and he will dominate you". So, obviously there is a lot to say about the "and he will dominate you" part of this, but I actually find "your yearning will be for your husband" more fraught and full of possible interpretations. Of particular interest to me is that this comes in the "doling out punishment" section, implying that this yearning is not only woman's new lot in life, but a punishment. I get that the intention is tying it to the preceding, so that the thought is "childbearing will hurt, but you are going to keep wanting to fuck anyway", but I think it is still contextually interesting, especially if you look at the parable of the serpent/temptation as one of sexual exploration. Of note also is that the hebrew word for "dominate" used here is typically related to animals and the like, IIRC. (Sidenote: a professor I had in college - biblical scholar, translated it from the original hebrew himself, etc etc - is convinced that the author of Genesis is female. Not sure I wholly agree, but it definitely does have some interesting gender dynamics) 2. Gen 3:21 "Yahweh God made tunics of skins for the man and his wife and clothed them". This is a very minor moment, but one that has always struck me. Notably, this is the first instance of death in the bible (unless these animals were skinned alive), and I find it almost nurturing that God goes to the trouble of making tunics before sending these folks into the wild. This is, to me, God at his most parental and arguably most human. 3. Gen 3:6 "...She also gave some of it to her husband who was with her, and he ate it". I like that the marriage of Adam and Eve is so ambiguous - were they created married? Was their marriage ceremony deemed too uninteresting for inclusion in Genesis? Also that marriage exists before the knowledge of good and evil, or mortality. Something I never really considered the implications of before. ----- Extra reading for anyone interested: Cain by Jose Saramago is a beautiful retelling of much of the book of Genesis (and others), and has my favorite representation of OT God in it. Queering Genesis, an insightful alternative interpretation of the creation narrative (only focuses on books 1 and 2 though, so the fall isn't really mentioned). A good site in general. EDIT: Will keep adding as ideas come to me.