Eve has meant a lot of things to a lot of people, good and bad, but most importantly, to anyone who believes in Genesis in any way, she is the mother of all living. What God had in mind when creating woman—just one woman—lent itself to the idea of monogamy for humanity. While women have struggled with being respected as equals, Eve shows a unique oneness with her husband from how she was created. Eve, the first woman, completes the image of God in humanity. It was not that the first man was subpar in representing God’s image, but that God introduced the idea of the image of God being individually and communally seen in creation.

Within the creation of the woman, Mary Korsak points out that there is a theme of binaries in Genesis between the lands and seas of earth, the light and the dark, and heaven’s and earth’s waters (455). Genesis testifies this in how God creates the sexes not only for humanity, but also for animals and the rest of creation. Azila Reisenberger and Mary Korsak express the possibility of reading Genesis in a way that it is understood that the first human may have been separated from an androgynous form to carry out the creation mandate to take care of the garden and be fruitful and multiply. Although, the collective understanding of the creation account is that man was made first, then woman as Paul, a learned Pharisee, understood it in 1 Timothy 2:13. Nevertheless, I do think that it is not farfetched to see the text in this way, for both the woman and the man are called Adam; it is when God brings the woman to the man that they are distinguished by their biological sex, much like how hens and roosters are both called chickens.

As for the creation of the woman, the word tsela has been translated mainly as rib. While Reisenberger points out that translating tsela as rib can be demeaning for women when they are identified as mere help mates (449). The reasoning behind tsela being translated as rib can be seen in the Sumerian Paradise Myth where Enki has immense pain in his rib, resulting in the creation of Nin-ti. Pope and Sperling point out that the word ti mean rib and life in Sumerian that could explain the translation (573). Another view is that tsela could also be translated as side instead. Reisenberger shares that rabbis like Rashi and Samson Raphael Hirsch supported this view, affirming their own views about women’s equality in Judaism. Kevin Giles insists that because of how they are the same species as humans when the woman comes from the man that, “derivation does not imply subordination” (4). Either translation, I think, still shows equality between men and women from their original sinless state because of their purpose of partnering in the work of God.

Among the animals the first man siphoned through naming them, there was no one else like him. God saw what the man needed and pulled out a woman while he slept. As much as God could have created multiple partners for the man, he saw that one was enough for his companionship and work to be done in the Garden of Eden. None of the animals could be “the helper corresponding to him” that the man needed (Trible 358). God taking the woman out of the man does not imply a hierarchy between men and women, but rather of necessity of mutuality and intimacy. She, too, shares the image and likeness of God, sharing in the same functions and representation of God in Eden (Giles 3). Both carried the name Adam until they fell into sin, the man estranging his wife take the title of Adam while the woman was called Hawa or Eve by him because of her future role in populating the world.

Women have a place in God’s story not merely as mothers or wives, but as children of the living God as the initial creation of their beings occurred. For the first man, God saw that one woman was enough for partnership in marriage as well as the community of God in creation. As a partnership, it was meant to be exclusive, seeing that post-fall images of marriages seem to falter when a marriage grows outside of the creation ideal. Finally, whether tsela means rib or side, it should be agreed upon that women were created by God as a trusted, special friend and lover to carry on the commandments of God, building each other by faith and to do so by looking unto God for their needs. Woman was not made to be led all the time or lead all the time, but reside in creation, building up the Kingdom of God as the strong help God made her to be.

Works Cited

Giles, Kevin. "The Genesis of Equality, Part 1." Priscilla Papers, vol. 28, no. 4, Oct. 2014, pp. 3-9. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=99327513&site=eds-live.

Korsak, Mary Phil. "Eve, Malignant or Maligned?." Cross Currents, vol. 44, Winter 94/95, pp. 453-462. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hft&AN=509657148&site=eds-live.

Pope, Marvin H. and S. David Sperling. "Eve." Encyclopedia Judaica. 2nd ed. 2007. 572-573. Print.

Reisenberger, Azila Talit. "The Creation of Adam as Hermaphrodite - and Its Implications for Feminist Theology." Judaism: A Quarterly Journal of Jewish Life and Thought, no. 4, 1993, p. 447. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsglr&AN=edsgcl.14873619&site=eds-live.

Trible, Phyllis. "Eve." The New Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible. 1st ed. Vol. 2. Nashville: Abingdon, 2008. 358-360. Print.

Wallace, Howard N. "Eve." The Anchor Bible Dictionary. 1st ed. Vol. 2. New York: Doubleday, 1992. 676-677. Print.