ADAM AND EVE

The well-known Eden story opens with a vision of a lush paradise, in stark contrast to the Israelites' regular droughts in the Canaanite highlands. Adam, a person created from "clods of the earth [adamah]," has been placed there by God (Gen 2:7). God creates an earthling from the earth, particularly reddish-brown arable land (since adam is probably linked to adom, the Hebrew word for "red"), in this wordplay that alludes to humans as soil animals. Adam is a phrase that is frequently used to refer to people of all genders, therefore its use here does not necessarily imply that the first human is a man. In fact, certain feminist interpretations of biblical inclusive language, as well as some rabbinic texts and medieval Jewish commentators, as well as an early Mesopotamian creation story, consider the initial person to be androgynous. Therefore, in order for reproduction to occur and for human existence to continue, God had to separate the first being into a female and a male. It is best to translate the term "Adam" as "human" until a second human being is formed because the word "Adam" in Genesis 2-3 is not clearly a male. God instructs the first living creature that everything in the garden is edible save from a specific tree's fruit. Then, God determines that this individual shouldn't be by themselves and gives them an animal companion.

Although the creation of animals helps to fill the world with living things, it falls short of God's original intentions. The second step involves God doing cosmic surgery on the first person by removing one "side" (NRSV; "rib"; Gen 2:21) to create a second person. The well-known phrase "bone of my bones/and flesh of my flesh" (Gen 2:23) captures the fundamental connectedness of these first two individuals. Today, "woman" is denoted by the term ishah, and "man" by the word ish. These terms have a remarkable word play while not likely deriving from the same Hebrew root and having a similar pronunciation (as do adam and adamah), suggesting a fundamental similarity between the two creatures. Therefore, a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. This unity, a result of the one being split into two, is reenacted during copulation, signifying the strength of the marital bond over the natal one (Gen 2:24). In Genesis 2:20, the term ezer kenegdo, which is translated as "helper as his partner" by the NRSV, "suitable helper" by the NJPS (New Jewish Publication Society Version), and "helpmeet" or "help-mate" in earlier English versions, describes the bond between this first couple of humans. This peculiar term probably denotes reciprocity. Helper is a word that can indicate "an aide" (subordinate) or "an expert" (superior); for example, in Psalm 54:4 [Hebrew 54:6], god is referred to as "Helper." However, the modifying prepositional phrase, which the Bible only uses here, appears to indicate "equal to." The term, which can be translated as "an equal helper" or "a appropriate counterpart," denotes that there is no hierarchy between the two individuals that make up the primordial pair. They create the kind of marriage that was vital for surviving in the mountain settlements of ancient Israel, where both men and women's labor was crucial. Another translation option preserves the opposite connotation while also taking into consideration the fact that the Hebrew word ezer can be derived from a root that means "to be strong, powerful" rather than "to help." In that case, the term would be interpreted as "potent counterpart." This reading is intriguing because it highlights the significant authority that women held in Iron Age rural Israelite homes. There are no names for this ancient pair. Eve's identity isn't revealed by the storyteller until near the end of the Eden tale, just before she is driven out of the garden. Although the word "adam," frequently followed by "the human," appears nineteen times in the Eden account, it is not explicitly used as the name of the first man until the Cain and Abel story at the end of Genesis 4. Eve is the first person to possess a particular type of identification.