Two halves

STUDY

Photo: iStock

EVE is a rib taken from Adam. While he slept, God removed a rib from Adam and made it into a woman.

It is Eve who, in the Garden of Eden, first succumbed to the deception of the serpent: at the behest of the serpent, she took of the tree’s fruit and ate. Eve handed fruit to her husband and he too ate.

Traditionally understood, the second creation narrative (Genesis 2 and 3) has strong patriarchal overtones. The Early Church Father, Tertullian said that all women were deserters of the divine law. He described women as ‘the devil’s gateway’: ‘you’, he said, ‘are she who persuaded [Adam] whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack’. The patriarchal interpretation of this sacred text is poisonous but, sadly, patriarchy remains alive in our society: we need think only of the injustice of unequal pay. The Hebrew word for rib is tsela. By contrast to the Christian interpretation of tsela as rib, in Judaism it is often rendered as ‘side’ or ‘half’. This is a monumental diff erence. According to the Jewish tradition, when Adam is asleep, God does not remove a rib from Adam but instead creates two creatures, two equal halves: one male and one female. Earlier in Genesis

2, when God first created Adam, God formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed into Adam the breath of life. Within the Jewish tradition, it is said that this first Adam was, in some sense, both male and female. It was not until God created two halves that we could distinguish between male and female. In the Jewish understanding, male and female have always been equal: both possess the breath of God in equal measure. One can only wonder what diff erences in societal values might have flowed had the Christian Church opted for ‘half’ instead of rib.

There has been at least one interesting and imaginative variation of the Christian interpretation of God’s creation of Eve. The blind minister of Innellan, George Matheson (1840 – 1906), departed from the traditional view but held firmly to both accounts of creation in Genesis 1 and 2. Matheson asked of the origin of Eve, ‘Where does the story take place?’ The answer is that Adam is asleep; in other words, it is a dream. Matheson said that Genesis 2 is not an account of Eve’s creation but rather a record of their marriage. It is in a dream that Adam first ‘sees’ Eve. It is the first moment he understands her as his soul mate, as half of who he is: bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. Matheson said that Genesis 1 tells us that Eve has always been with Adam. It is later that Adam sees her for who she is: the revelation is within Adam.

Despite the patriarchy which has prevailed in the churches, including the Church of Scotland, we see a quite diff erent example of values in Jesus and in the Gospels. Often, those who are most faithful to Jesus, most attentive, are women including Mary, His mother. The story of Jesus and the woman of Samaria, and Jesus’ parable of God as a woman searching for a coin are mind-blowing. It is no subordinate or rib who first saw the Risen Christ: it was Mary Magdalene.

The Rev Scott McKenna is minister at Edinburgh: Mayfield Salisbury.

This article appears in the May 2018 Issue of Life and Work

Click here to view the article in the magazine.

To view other articles in this issue Click here.

If you would like to view other issues of Life and Work, you can see the full archive here.