I started studying about Eve awhile back when I tried explaining the creation story to my daughter and realized I didn't understand it as well as I thought. One thing that fascinated me in my studies was the incredibly negative view that most Christian and secular (and even a few older Mormon) sources have towards Eve. For example, medieval art usually depicts the serpent with Eve's face (like below) and there's a belief that Cain was actually fathered by Satan as the serpent. Their interpretation usually rests on the assumption that Eve eating the fruit was a "bad thing" and the serpent tricked her into it.
We don't share these assumptions but that raises new questions for which I do not have answers. Satan must have known God's plan (to send us with agency into the mortal world) so why did he try to convince Eve to eat the fruit and thereby learn and grow? What did he gain from this action? What was he trying to gain?
Eve exists in our scriptures as a prototype. We are all in some sense Eve. How does the tale of Satan's actions in the garden apply to us? Why are Satan's actions in the garden recorded for us to read?
Scripture Sources:
Genesis 3-4
Moses 4-5
2 Nephi 2
