5. Eve
Eve is an incredibly complicated Biblical figure. She is typically viewed as responsible for the Fall of Man, as she ate the forbidden fruit at the urging of the serpent. She was also created last by God, which have led some theologians to argue that she was inferior, being created from Adam. One early theologian wrote that Eve’s sin was that of all women, who take after their founder. He described all women as “the devil’s gateway… the unsealer of that forbidden tree… the first deserter of the divine law.”
However, other theologians have viewed Eve differently. Some have argued that she showed the first evidence of independence and free will, actively deciding against God’s wishes. Some have also argued that God created her last with the intention of her being the pinnacle of all his creations. Regardless of her plans or production, she is undoubtedly cast as the Biblical mother of all humankind. She went through labor twice with only Adam as her company, successfully birthing the fathers of humanity in Cain and Abel. She suffered the pains of those labors as punishment for her role in the fall of men, as was to be the punishment of all of her female descendants.