The Disappearance of Eve and the Gender of Christ: Why Traditional Soteriology Requires a Trans* Savior

by Kevin Carnahan

After hundreds of years during which Eve was blamed for originating sin, St. Paul removed her from the narrative of the fall to create a "one man"/"one man" typology between Adam as the origin of sin and Christ as the source of salvation. This disappearance created a theological problem. Eve fell outside the narrative of sin and salvation. Early Christians, sensing the lack in Paul's formula, created an alternative typology between Eve, the mother of all the living, and Mary, the mother of Jesus. Eventually, early theologians attempted to solve the soteriological problem Eve posed by coordinating these two typologies. This solution, however, produced a furthur dilemma. Either Mary had to be posited as a second savior, or the salvation offered to Eve in the revised scheme had to be second-class. Neither option is theologically acceptable.

The Disappearance of Eve and the Gender of Christ proposes a solution to this problem. It revises Paul's original formula and with it a set of common claims about Christ's sex and gender. It accepts Christ as the new Adam and the new Eve and accepts that Christ is, theologically speaking, trans*.

Carnahan offers a new theology of sex and gender as a calling within a context of responsibility as a framework for making sense of Eve, Christ, and ourselves. He shows how, from first-century Roman culture to medieval mystical experience and into our own time, there exists a long tradition of seeing Christ as transgressing and even transitioning across sex and gender boundaries.

210 pages, Paperback

Published April 15, 2025

Reviews

[Dimo Ayoub · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book has a captivating premise. I think it builds up really well but disappoints in the final chapter. Sometimes the author quotes a single source for pages on end… Feels a little rookie. Would be nice to have had more sources on some pages. Some spelling errors, particularly when writing or quoting in Hebrew. I think it’s worth the read, but could have been a longer, denser book.

[Jasmine Trinks-Reese · Rating 3 out of 5]

I went into this book knowing it was going to be academic and somewhat outside of my wheelhouse, but I found I was able to follow the argument pretty easily. It succeeds in what it sets out to do. I'm glad Carnahan included the postscript, otherwise the work would have felt unfinished/anticlimactic.