Eve. [Heb. Chawwah, the etymology of which is not clear. The word has been interpreted as meaning "ancestress," "mother," "the living one," "the one who gives birth," etc. Gr. Eua.] The first woman, Adam's "help meet," and mother of the human race (Gen 2:18-22). Adam first named her ishshah, "woman" (from ish, "man"), and gave her the name Eve after the Fall. Perfect as he was in manly dignity and ability, Adam was an incomplete being, in and of himself. To supply this inherent, divinely ordained deficiency God created Eve "an help meet for him," literally, "as his counterpart," "appropriate to him." Adam was created a social being and it was "not good" that he "should be alone" (v 18). God ordained that Eve should supply what was lacking in him in order that together the two of them should constitute a completeness of being. Eve succumbed to the seduction of the tempter and induced Adam to join her in transgression (Gen 3:1-7). As a penalty, Eve was subordinated to Adam (v 16) and told that pain in childbirth would be her lot (v 16). After the reference to her in ch 4:1, 2 as mother of Cain and Abel, she is not mentioned again in the OT, nor even alluded to. In the NT, Paul mentions her twice, once with reference to the fact that the serpent beguiled her (2 Cor 11:3) and once with reference to her transgression's being the ground for the subordinate status assigned to women after the Fall (1 Ti 2:13) -- Seventh-day Adventist Bible Dictionary.