Eve
EVE, or, in Hebrew, Ḥavvah; the first woman in the creation narratives of the Hebrew Bible, according to which she was formed from one of the ribs of Adam, the first man (Gn. 2:21–23). In this account the creator god wished for Adam to have a mate and so brought all the beasts of the fold and birds of the sky before him to see what he would call each one (Gn. 2:19). However, among these creatures the man found no one to be his companion (Gn. 2:20). Accordingly, this episode is not solely an etiology of the primal naming of all creatures by the male ancestor of the human race but an account of how this man (ish) found no helpmeet until a woman was formed from one of his ribs, whom he named "woman" (ishshah; Gn. 2:23). This account is juxtaposed with a comment that serves etiologically to establish the social institution of marriage wherein a male leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife so that they become "one flesh" together (Gn. 2:24). The matrimonial union is thus a reunion of a primordial situation when the woman was, literally and figuratively, flesh of man's flesh.
Such a version of the origin of the woman, as a special creation from Adam's body, stands in marked contrast to the creation tradition found in Genesis 1:27b, where there is a hint that the primordial person (adam) was in fact an androgyne. Alternatively, this latter half-verse may have been concerned with correcting a tradition of an originally lone male by the statement that both male and female were simultaneously created as the first "Adam."
This mythic image of a male as the source of all human life (Gn. 2:21–22) reflects a male fantasy of self-sufficiency. The subsequent narrative introduces a more realistic perspective. Thus, after the woman has succumbed to the wiles of the snake, eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and shared it with her husband, she is acknowledged as a source of new life—albeit with negative overtones, since the narrative stresses the punishment of pain that must be borne by Adam's mate and all her female descendants during pregnancy and childbirth. In token of her role as human genetrix, the man gave to the woman a new name: she was thenceforth called Eve—"for she was the mother of all life" (Gn. 2:19).
This new name, Eve (Heb., Ḥavvah), is in fact a pun on the noun for "life" (Heb., ḥay), since both ḥavvah and ḥay allude to old Semitic words (in Aramaic, Phoenician, and Arabic) for "serpent," as the ancient rabbis noted. Another intriguing cross-cultural pun should be recalled, insofar as it may also underlie the key motifs of the biblical narrative. Thus, in a Sumerian myth it is told that when Enki had a pain in his rib, Ninhursaga caused Nin-ti ("woman of the rib") to be created from him. Strikingly, the Sumerian logogram ti (in the goddess's name) stands for both "rib" and "life."
According to one rabbinic midrash, Eve was taken from the thirteenth rib of Adam's right side after Lilith, his first wife, had left him (Pirqei de-Rabbi Eliʿezer 20). Other legends emphasize Eve's susceptibility to guile and persuasion. Christian traditions use the episode of Eve to encourage the submission of women to their husbands (cf. 2 Cor. 11:3, 1 Tm. 2:22–25). Several church fathers typologically compared Eve with Mary, the "new Eve" and mother of Jesus: the sinfulness and disobedience of the former were specifically contrasted with the latter. The temptation motif and the banishment of Eve and Adam are frequently found in medieval Jewish and Christian illuminated manuscripts and in Persian iconography. The theme is also found in medieval morality plays and in the apocalyptic tract Life of Adam and Eve.
Adam; Lilith.
Bibliography
Ginzberg, Louis. The Legends of the Jews (1909–1938). 7 vols. Translated by Henrietta Szold et al. Reprint, Philadelphia, 1937–1966. See the index, s.v. Eve.
Mangenot, Eugène. "Eve." In Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, vol. 5, cols. 1640–1655. Paris, 1913.
Speiser, E. A. "Genesis." Anchor Bible, vol. 1. Garden City, N.Y., 1964.
MICHAEL FISHBANE (1987)
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