Frequently Asked Questions
Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived. --Oscar Wilde

FAQs – Complete & Printable (updated 1.11.09)

FAQs – Creation Accounts

Why are there two different accounts of Creation, back to back, in the Old Testament and the Torah?
I thought Adam and Eve were the very first people in the world.  Why did you include other people in the story?

FAQs – Creation of Adam & Eve

Do you think Adam and Eve are real people?
Do you really believe that Adam and Eve were created the way you’ve portrayed it?
Was Eve really created after Adam?  Couldn’t they have been created at the same time?

FAQs – The Garden of Eden

Do you really know the location of the Garden of Eden?
It didn’t rain in the Garden.  So why do you have Adam and Eve experiencing a rainstorm in the Garden?
I thought the Garden of Eden was a perfect place.  Why have you made it messy?

FAQs – Eve & Adam Eat of the Fruit

What was meant by the serpent?  And what was all that about the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?  Puh-leese.
Why did you change the fruit that Eve ate of?  I thought it was an apple.
Was Eve simply stupid for eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?
Is God’s indictment of Adam and Eve a curse, as you see it, or a consequence?

FAQs – Elohim & Eve & Adam

Is Elohim male?  If not, why do you insist on using male pronouns?
Had Adam and Eve really spent time with Elohim, they would have believed in Him, right?
How do you know what Elohim was like?  Or what He looked like?
Did Adam and Eve have sex in the Garden, or later, when they were thrown out?

FAQs – Character portrayals of Eve, Adam, and their children

Ooh, yuck.  You have the whole incest thing happening between Naava and Cain.  Why is that?
Who was your role model for Eve?  And do you feel you portrayed her too modernly?
How did you come up with your characters?  Eve’s daughters are not mentioned in the Bible or in the Torah.
Isn’t Dara too young to watch other children?  At the beginning of the novel she speaks in a younger voice than at the end.  Why is that?
I like Dara’s sweet response to Aya’s insistence that Dara learn to talk to Elohim.  Where did you come up with that idea?

FAQs – Mesopotamian culture

Why have you placed Adam and Eve in the lower regions of Mesopotamia?
How did you decide on Sumerian culture for the city people?
Didn’t everyone speak the same language until the Tower of Babel?
How could you possibly know the cuisine of ancient peoples?
Explain this whole cuneiform writing thingamajig.
Did the Sumerians really know all that stuff about the stars and moon and years and days?
How could you possibly know how people talked back then?
What are these Sumerian words–pukku and mikki and gidim?

FAQs – Sumerian gods & religion

Was it necessary to bring in all the other pagan gods?  And where did you get Inanna?
What exactly was a ziggurat and what was it used for?

FAQs – Writing Eve

In the Prologue, you have Eve talking to Naava.  Why is the story told in the voices of two other daughters who are not present?
Why are Eve, Aya, and Dara written in first person, but Naava is in third?
How long did it take you to write Eve?