Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

EVE

(Heb. ḥawwâ)

The first woman, according to the Creation account of Gen. 2:4b–3:24. Just as Adam was formed to remedy the earth’s infertility (Gen. 2:5), so Eve is created in response to Adam’s need (perhaps also his infertility; v. 18). Yahweh therefore sets about to create for the man an ʿēzer kĕnegdô, a “helper corresponding to him.” Heb. ʿēzer does not carry the overtones of subordination associated with the English “helper.” Rather, an ʿēzer is someone capable of helping, and in most instances the word describes God (Exod. 18:4; Deut. 33:26; Ps. 146:5; Hos. 13:9). The woman, however, is not the man’s superior; she is explicitly said to correspond to him. Unike the animals or Adam himself, the woman is not formed of earth but built from a rib removed from Adam’s side. The word “woman,” is given a playful etymology in the text; she is “wo-man” because she is “from-man” (ʾiššâ from ʾîš; Gen. 2:23). The man joyfully receives this partner, and announces that a man will now leave his parents to “cling” to a woman as the two become one flesh, apparently celebrating an end to the man’s sterility as well as to his loneliness.

The woman is approached in Gen. 3:1 by the snake and, as she says, is “tricked” into eating the forbidden fruit. Contrary to popular tradition, she does not then beguile her husband into eating; she “gave some to her man who was with her” (Gen. 3:6), and who was apparently party to the entire exchange between the woman and the snake. The woman is then punished with both the life-threatening pains of childbirth and with subordination to her partner (Gen. 3:16). Only now does Adam take on the authority to name the woman Eve (ḥawwâ), celebrating her role as “mother of all living” (ḥay). A connection has been proposed between the name µawwâ and Aram. ḥewyāʾ, “snake,” but the relation is uncertain.

In Gen. 4:1 Eve bears her first son, Cain, exclaiming, “I made a man!” Curiously, after the subsequent births of Abel and Seth Eve is not mentioned again in the OT. The figure of Eve is ambiguous. Her status as “mother of all living” suggests an affinity with the mother goddesses of the ancient Near East, but the biblical narrative pointedly consigns the universal progenitrix to mortal status.

Intertestamental Writings and NT

Eve is mentioned in various writings of the intertestamental period, during which the tradition develops that Eve (or even “woman”) is responsible for introducing both sin and death to humankind: “From a woman sin had its beginning; and because of her we all die” (Sir. 25:24; cf. 2 En. 30:17; Apoc. Mos. 7.1; 21). By the NT period Paul is thus able to cite Eve (2 Cor. 11:3) as the exemplar of susceptibility to deception and even of sexual seduction. In 1 Tim. 2:12-15 Eve (“the woman”) appears as the prototype whose punishment now falls on all women. The author argues (as Gen. 2 does not) that Adam’s prior creation establishes his authority over Eve (Gk. prṓtos, “first,” is taken to designate both prior creation and premier status). Moreover, because Eve was deceived by the snake (and presumably passed on the snake’s words to Adam; cf. Gen. 3:17 in which Adam has “listened to the voice” of his woman) she is an unreliable authority; women are not to teach men in the church but are to maintain silence. The teaching on childbirth in 1 Tim. 2:15 is notoriously difficult. The passage, which seems to claim that modern women gain salvation through childbearing, may instead refer to Eve’s sentence of life-threatening birth pains (Gen. 3:16). If the ancient translation, “she will be brought safely through childbirth,” is adopted, then the author is continuing the parallel between Eve and modern women: Eve’s punishment of difficult and dangerous labor may be mitigated for women who lead pious lives. The underlying premise that women’s actions must be strictly regulated both as punishment for and as safeguard against the actions of Eve is striking, all the more so given the contrasting use of Adam as the redeemed type of Christ in Rom. 5; 1 Cor. 15. Eve is virtually absent from the Gospels; the single, oblique reference to Adam and Eve is Jesus’ saying on divorce recorded in Matt. 19:4-6 = Mark 10:6-9. Because male and female “become one flesh” in marriage, divorce is prohibited.

Later Traditions

Eve features prominently in early Jewish and Christian texts, as the first couple increasingly take on the role (a role curiously absent from the OT) of paradigm for the human condition. In rabbinic texts Eve is generally cited as the origin of various feminine traits the rabbis found peculiar or distasteful. Thus, Eve’s creation from a bone explains women’s implacability, since bones are not easily softened, and so on (Gen. Rab. 17:8). Allegorical interpreters such as Philo cast Eve as the “sensual” side of human nature, which is corrupted by pleasure (the snake) into misleading the will (Adam) into sin. This opposition between Adam as mind or will and Eve as body or sensation anticipates the interpretation of later Christian authors who claimed that the knowledge gained by Adam and Eve was specifically carnal knowledge, resulting from Eve’s seduction of Adam. In the Qurʾan Adam’s wife is not named, though she is known as µawwāʾ in later tradition. The woman and man do not act independently of one another in this account; the two face temptation, eat the fruit, and are punished as a pair (humankind) rather than as individuals (Qurʾan Sura 7:19-25). In addition to various traditions condemning Eve, already in the 2nd century c.e. Irenaeus posited Eve as the type of Mary, who affords a possibility of redemption for Eve parallel to that provided for Adam by Christ.

Bibliography. J. Galambush, “ʾādām from ʾadāmâ and ʾiššâ from ʾîš: Derivation and Subordination in Genesis 2.4b–3.24,” in History and Interpretation, ed. M. P. Graham, W. P. Brown, and J. K. Kuan. JSOTSup 173 (Sheffield, 1994), 33-46; J. A. Phillips, Eve: The History of an Idea (San Francisco, 1984); P. Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality. OBT 2 (Philadelphia, 1978); H. N. Wallace, The Eden Narrative. HSM 32 (Atlanta, 1985).

Julie Galambush

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

EVE

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)