Mother Eve Series

The Woman of Eden and Her Partner

The well-known Eden tale begins with the scene of a well-watered (fertile) garden—unlike the frequently drought-stricken highlands of the land of Canaan in which the Israelites lived. God has placed there an adam, a person formed from "clods of the earth [adamah]" (Gen 2:7). This wordplay evokes the notion of human beings as earth creatures: God forms an earthling from the earth, notably reddish-brown fertile land (for adam is likely related to adom, the Hebrew word for "red"). Because adam is often a gender-inclusive term, its use here for the first human does not necessarily mean a man. Indeed, some feminist readings of inclusive biblical language, rabbinic texts, and medieval Jewish commentaries consider the original human androgynous (having the characteristics or nature of both male and female), as does an ancient Mesopotamian creation tale. At the very least, God has to divide the first being into females and males for procreation and ongoing human life to begin. Because the word adam in Genesis 2–3 is not unambiguously male, it is best rendered "human" until a second person is created.

God tells this first being that anything in the Garden may be eaten except for the fruit of a particular tree. God then decides that this person should not be alone and tries animals as companions. Creating animals to populate the world with living creatures does not meet God's intentions. God then performs cosmic surgery on the first person, removing one "side" ("rib"; Gen 2:21) to form a second person. The essential unity of these first two humans is expressed in the well-known words (Gen 2:23) "bone of my bones / and flesh of my flesh." The word ishah is now used for "woman" and ish for "man." These similar sounding words are probably not from the same Hebrew root, but they form a striking wordplay (as do adam and adamah), indicating an essential sameness of the two beings. This unity, a function of the one being split into two, is reenacted in copulation, indicating the strength of the marital bond over the natal one: "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh" (Gen 2:24).

The relationship between this first pair of humans is expressed by the term Ezer kenegdo (Gen 2:20), translated "helper as his partner" by the NRSV, "fitting helper" in the NJPS (New Jewish Publication Society Version), and "helpmeet" or "help-mate" in older English versions. This unusual phrase probably indicates mutuality. The noun helper can mean either "an assistant" (subordinate) or "an expert" (superior; e.g., God as Helper in Ps 54:4 [Hebrew 54:6]). The modifying prepositional phrase, used only here in the Bible, apparently means "equal to." The phrase, which might be translated as "an equal helper" or "a suitable counterpart," indicates that no hierarchical relationship exists between the two members of the primordial pair. They form a marital partnership of the kind necessary for survival in the highland villages of ancient Israel, where the hard work of both women and men was essential. However, another translation is possible, one that retains the counterpart idea and also takes into account that ezer can be derived from a Hebrew root meaning "to be strong, powerful" rather than the one meaning "to help." The phrase would then be translated as "powerful counterpart." This reading is compelling because women had considerable power in rural Israelite households in the Iron Age.