Ishtar Rising

"...the similarities here - the role of the female, the presence of the apple, the sequence of supernatural calamities - suggest that there might be a common origin to these myths... the Genesis text is very late and has altered the original myth to fit the patriarchal context of the religion of Yahweh. Originally, Eve was not Adam's wife but his mother; she was not human but a goddess; and the outcome was not tragic but triumphant - after the magic fruit was eaten, Adam himself became a god. (There is still a hint of this in the Genesis version, in which Yahweh says nervously, "Behold, the man has become as one of us [the gods] to know good and evil.").