Eve

Eve (Hebrew: חַוָּה‎‎, Classical Hebrew: Ḥawwāh, in Aramaean and Modern Israeli Hebrew: Chavah, Arabic: حوّاء‎‎ or Ḥawwā’, Syriac: ܚܘܐ) is a figure in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. According to the creation myth^[1] of the Abrahamic religions, she was the first woman. In Islamic tradition, Eve is known as Adam's wife and the first woman although she is not specifically named in the Quran.

According to the second chapter of Genesis, Eve was created by God (Yahweh) by taking her from the rib^[2] of Adam, to be Adam's companion. She succumbs to the serpent's temptation to eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She shares the fruit with Adam, and as a result the first humans are expelled from the Garden of Eden. Christian churches differ on how they view both Adam and Eve's disobedience to God (often called the fall of man), and to the consequences that those actions had on the rest of humanity. Christian and Jewish teachings sometimes hold Adam (the first man) and Eve to a different level of responsibility for the fall, although Islamic teaching holds both equally responsible.

Although Eve is not a saint's name, the traditional name day of Adam and Eve has been celebrated on December 24 since the Middle Ages in many European countries such as Germany, Hungary, Scandinavia, Estonia, and Lithuania.

Etymology

Creation of Eve
Marble relief by Lorenzo Maitani on the Orvieto Cathedral, Italy

Eve in Hebrew is Ḥawwāh, meaning "living one" or "source of life", and is related to ḥāyâ, "to live". The name derives from the Semitic root ḥyw.^[3]

Hawwah has been compared to the Hurrian goddess Kheba, who was shown in the Amarna letters to be worshipped in Jerusalem during the Late Bronze Age. It has been suggested that the name Kheba may derive from Kubau, a woman who was the first ruler of the Third Dynasty of Kish.^[4][5]

The goddess Asherah, wife of El, mother of the elohim from the first millennium BCE was given the title Chawat, from which the name Hawwah in Aramaic was derived, Eve in English.^[6]

It has been suggested that the Hebrew name Eve (חַוָּה) also bears resemblance^[7] to an Aramaic word for "snake" (Old Aramaic language חוה; Jewish Palestinian Aramaic חִוְיָא), see below.

In Genesis

The Creation of Eve, from the Sistine Chapel ceiling by Michelangelo

In the Book of Genesis of the Hebrew Bible, the first human female is called אישה, isha (English: woman) by the first human man, Adam. She is created by Elohim from the man's rib. The origin of this motif is compared to the Sumerian myth in which the goddess Ninhursag created a beautiful garden full of lush vegetation and fruit trees, called Edinu, in Dilmun, the Sumerian earthly Paradise, a place which the Sumerians believed to exist to the east of their own land, beyond the sea.^[8]

Ninhursag charged Enki, her lover and half brother, with controlling the wild animals and tending the garden, but Enki became curious about the garden, and his assistant, Adapa, selected seven plants (eight in some version) and offered them to Enki, who ate them. This enraged Ninhursag, and she caused Enki to fall ill. Enki felt pain in his rib, which is a pun in Sumerian, as the word "ti" means both "rib" and "life". The other deities persuaded Ninhursag to relent. Ninhursag then created a new goddess (seven or eight to heal his seven or eight ailing organs, including his rib), who was named Ninti, (a name composed of "Nin", or "lady", and "ti", and which may be translated both as "Lady of Living" and "Lady of the Rib"), to cure Enki ^[9] Some scholars suggest that this served as the basis for the story of Eve as "the mother of life" and lady of the rib, created from Adam's rib in the Book of Genesis.^[10] Neither Ninhursag nor Ninti are exact parallels of Eve, since both differ from the character, however, given that the pun with rib is present only in Sumerian, linguistic criticism places the Sumerian account as the more ancient and therefore, a possible narrative influence on the Judeo-Christian story of creation.^[11]

Creation

William Blake's pencil illustration of The Creation of Eve in response to the line "And She Shall Be Called Woman". The object was created c. 1803-05 and currently is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art ^[12]

In Genesis 2:18-22, the woman is created to be ezer kenegdo, a term that is notably difficult to translate, to the man. Kenegdo means "alongside, opposite, a counterpart to him", and ezer means active intervention on behalf of the other person.^[13] God's naming of the elements of the cosmos in Genesis 1 illustrated his authority over creation; now the man's naming of the animals (and of woman) illustrates his authority within creation.^[14]

The woman is called ishah, woman, with an explanation that this is because she was taken from ish, meaning "man"; the two words are not in fact connected. Later, after the story of the Garden is complete, she will be given a name, Hawwah (Eve). This means "living" in Hebrew, from a root that can also mean "snake".^[15] A long-standing exegetical tradition holds that the use of a rib from man's side emphasizes that both man and woman have equal dignity, for woman was created from the same material as man, shaped and given life by the same processes.^[16] In fact, the word traditionally translated "rib" in English can also mean side, chamber, or beam.^[17]

In the King James Version, אַחַת מִצַּלְעֹתָיו is translated as "one of his ribs". The contrary position is that the term צלע or ṣelaʿ, occurring forty-one times in the Tanakh, is most often translated as "side" in general. "Rib" is, however, the etymologically primary meaning of the term, which is from a root ṣ-l-ʿ meaning "bend", a cognate to the Assyrian ṣêlu meaning "rib". Also God took "one" (ʾeḫad) of Adam's ṣelaʿ, suggesting an individual rib. The Septuagint has μίαν τῶν πλευρῶν αὐτοῦ, with ἡ πλευρά choosing a Greek term that, like the Hebrew ṣelaʿ, may mean either "rib", or, in the plural, "side [of a man or animal]" in general. The specification "one of the πλευρά" thus closely imitates the Hebrew text. The Aramaic form of the word is עלע or ʿalaʿ, which appears, also in the meaning "rib", in Daniel 7:5.

The third-century BC Septuagint translation into Greek says: "ἔλαβε μίαν τῶν πλευρῶν αὐτοῦ", literally: "[God] took one of his (i.e. Adam's) pleurōn". The word pleurá in Greek means both "side", or "flank", and "rib"; it is used in the genitive plural (tőn pleurōn) in the Septuagint text. Usage of the dual number would have rendered taīn pleuraīn rather than tőn pleurōn, and would have clearly directed exegesis towards "one of his [two] flanks" rather than towards "one of his [several] ribs"; however, the dual number is never used in the Septuagint, as it had become practically obsolete in Koine Greek by that time. Therefore, as it stands, the Septuagint supports either reading.

The term, "...a rib..."^{[Gen 2:21–24]} – Hebrew tsala` or tsela (from Strong's Concordance #6760 Prime Root) can mean curve, limp, adversity and side. tsal'ah (fem of #6760) being side, chamber, rib, or beam. The traditional reading of "rib" has been questioned recently by feminist theologians who suggest it should instead be rendered as "side", supporting the idea that woman is man's equal and not his subordinate.^[18] Such a reading shares elements in common with Aristophanes' story of the origin of love and the separation of the sexes in Plato's Symposium.^[19]

A recent suggestion, based upon observations that men and women have the same number of ribs, speculates that the bone was the baculum, a small structure found in the penis of many mammals, but not in humans.^[20]

Expulsion from Eden

Adam and Eve expelled from Eden, by Hans Heyerdahl, 1877

Eva by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1528)

Eve is found in the Genesis 3 expulsion from Eden narrative which is characterized as a parable or "wisdom tale" in the wisdom tradition.^[21] This narrative portion is attributed to Yahwist (J) by the documentary hypothesis due to the use of YHWH.^[22]

In the expulsion from Eden narrative a dialogue is exchanged between a legged serpent (possibly similar to that appearing on the Ishtar Gate of Babylon) and the woman (3:1-5).^[23] The serpent is identified in 2:19 as an animal that was made by Yahweh among the beasts of the field.^[24] The woman is willing to talk to the serpent and respond to the creature's cynicism by repeating Yahweh's prohibition from 2:17.^[25] The serpent directly disputes Yahweh's command.^[26] Adam and the woman sin (3:6-8).^[27] Yahweh questions Adam, who blames the woman (3:9-13).^[23] Yahweh then challenges the woman to explain herself, who blames the serpent, who is cursed to crawl on its belly, so losing its limbs.^[28]

Adam, Eve, and the (female) serpent at the entrance to Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, France, is the portrayal of the image of the serpent as a mirror of Eve was common in earlier iconography as a result of the identification of women as the source of human original sin.

Divine pronouncement of three judgments are then laid against all culprits (3:14-19).^[23] A judgement oracle and the nature of the crime is first laid upon the serpent, then the woman, and finally Adam. After the serpent is cursed by Yahweh,^[29] the woman receives a penalty that impacts two primary roles: childbearing and her subservient relationship to her husband.^[30] Adam's penalty thus follows.^[31] The reaction of Adam, the naming of Eve, and Yahweh making skin garments are described in a concise narrative (3:20-21). The garden account ends with an intradivine monologue, determining the couple's expulsion, and the execution of that deliberation (3:22-24).^[23]

Mother of humanity

According to the Bible, for her share in the transgression, Eve (and womankind after her) is sentenced to a life of sorrow and travail in childbirth, and to be under the power of her husband. Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel (Qayin and Heḇel), the first a tiller of the ground, the second a keeper of sheep.^[32] After the death of Abel, Eve gave birth to a third son, Seth (Šet), from whom Noah (and thus the whole of modern humanity) is descended. Genesis 5:4 says that Eve had sons and daughters beyond just Cain, Abel, and Seth.

Family tree

In other works

Lilith, by John Collier, 1887

Certain concepts such as the serpent being identified as Satan, Eve's sin being sexual temptation, or Adam's first wife being Lilith, come from literary works found in various Jewish apocrypha, but not found anywhere in the Book of Genesis or the Torah itself. Writings dealing with these subjects are extant literature in Greek, Latin, Slavonic, Syriac, Armenian and Arabic, going back to ancient Jewish thought. There influential concepts were then adopted into Christian theology, but not into modern Judaism. This marked a radical split between the two religions. Some of the oldest Jewish portions of apocrypha are called Primary Adam Literature where some works became Christianized. Examples of Christianized works is The Book of Adam and Eve, known as the Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, translated from the Ethiopian Ge'ez by Solomon Caesar Malan (1882)^[33] and an original Syriac work entitled Cave of Treasures^[34] which has close affinities to the Conflict as noted by August Dillmann.

• In the Jewish book The Alphabet of Ben-Sira, Eve is Adam's "second wife", where Lilith is his first. In this alternate version, which entered Europe from the East in the 6th century, it suggests that Lilith was created at the same time, from the same earth (Sumerian Ki), as Adam's equal, similar to the Babylonian Lilitu, Sumerian Ninlil wife of Enlil. Lilith refuses to sleep or serve under Adam. When Adam tried to force her into the "inferior" position, she flew away from Eden into the air where she copulated with demons, conceiving hundreds more each day (a derivation of the Arabic djinn). God sent three angels after her, who threatened to kill her brood if she refused to return to Adam. She refuses, leaving God to make a second wife for Adam, except this time from his rib.
• The Life of Adam and Eve, and its Greek version Apocalypse of Moses, is a group of Jewish pseudepigraphical writings that recount the lives of Adam and Eve after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden to their deaths.
• The deuterocanonical Book of Tobit affirms that Eve was given to Adam as a helper (viii, 8; Sept., viii, 6).

Religious views

Judaism

In the first creation narrative (Elohim) account, it says male and female [Elohim] created them (Genesis 1:27), which has been interpreted to imply simultaneous creation of the man and the woman. Whereas the second creation account states that YHWH created Eve from Adam's rib, because he was lonely (Genesis 2:18 ff.). Thus to resolve this apparent discrepancy, some medieval rabbis suggested that Eve from the second account, and the woman of the Elohim account, were two separate individuals: Eve and Lilith.

Midrash Rabbah Genesis VIII:1 interprets "male and female He created them" to mean that God originally created Adam as a hermaphrodite. In this way, adam was bodily and spiritually male and female. God later decides that "it is not good for adam to be alone," and creates the separate beings, Adam and Eve. This promotes the idea of two people joining together to achieve a union of the two separate spirits.

The creation of Eve, according to Rabbi Joshua, is that:"God deliberated from what member He would create woman, and He reasoned with Himself thus: I must not create her from Adam's head, for she would be a proud person, and hold her head high. If I create her from the eye, then she will wish to pry into all things; if from the ear, she will wish to hear all things; if from the mouth, she will talk much; if from the heart, she will envy people; if from the hand, she will desire to take all things; if from the feet, she will be a gadabout. Therefore I will create her from the member which is hid, that is the rib, which is not even seen when man is naked."^[35]

According to the Midrash of Genesis Rabba and other later sources, either Cain had a twin sister, and Abel had two twin sisters, or Cain had a twin sister named Lebuda, and Abel a twin sister named Qelimath. The traditional Jewish belief is that Eve is buried in the Cave of Machpelah.

Christianity

Original sin, by Michiel Coxie

Some Early Church Fathers interpreted 2Cor.11:3 and 1Tim.2:13,14 that the Apostle Paul promoted the silence and submission of women due to Eve's deception by the serpent, her tempting Adam to eat the fatal fruit, and transgressing by eating of the fruit herself.

Tertullian told his female listeners, in the early 2nd century, that they "are the devil's gateway", and went on to explain that all women are responsible for the death of Christ: "On account of your desert – that is, death – even the Son of God had to die."^[36]

The snake in this piece, by the Workshop of Giovanni della Robbia, has a woman's face that resembles Eve's.^[37]

Saint Augustine, according to Elaine Pagels, used the sin of Eve to justify his idiosyncratic view of humanity as permanently scarred by the Fall, which led to the Catholic doctrine of original sin.

Gregory of Tours reported that in the Council of Macon (585 CE), attended by 43 bishops, one bishop maintained that woman could not be included under the term "man" as she was responsible for Adam's sin, and had a deficient soul. However, his case was declined and did not press the issue further.

Eve, in Christian art, is most usually portrayed as the temptress of Adam, and often during the Renaissance the serpent in the Garden is portrayed as having a woman's face identical to that of Eve. She was also compared with the Greco-Roman myth of Pandora who was responsible for bringing evil into the world.

Some Christians claim monogamy is implied in the story of Adam and Eve as one woman is created for one man. Eve's being taken from his side implies not only her secondary role in the conjugal state (1 Corinthians 11:9), but also emphasizes the intimate union between husband and wife, and the dependence of her to him.

In conventional Christianity, Eve is a prefigurement of Mary, mother of Jesus who is also sometimes called "the Second Eve".

Gnosticism

In Gnosticism, Eve is often seen as the embodiment of the supreme feminine principle, called Barbelo (from Arb-Eloh), barbeloth, or barthenos. She is equated with the light-maiden of Sophia, creator of the word (Logos) of God, the thygater tou photos or simply the Virgin Maiden, Parthenos. In other texts she is equated with Zoe (Life).^[38] In other Gnostic texts, such as The Hypostasis of the Archons (The Reality of the Rulers), the Pistis Sophia is equated with Eve's daughter, Norea, the wife of Seth. Especially among the Marcionites, women in Gnosticism were considered equal to men, being revered as prophets, teachers, traveling evangelists, faith healers, priests and even bishops.

Islam

Adam and Eve expelled from Paradise, from a Fal-nameh manuscript, Topkapi Palace library, Istanbul.

Adam's spouse is mentioned in the Quran in verses 30-39 of Sura 2, verses 11-25 of Sura 7, verses 26-42 of Sura 15, verses 61-65 of Sura 17, verses 50-51 of Sura 18, verses 110-124 of Sura 20 and in verses 71-85 of Sura 38, but the name "Eve" (Arabic: حواء, Hawwāʾ) is never revealed or used in the Quran. Eve is mentioned by name only in hadith.^[39]

Accounts of Adam and Eve in Islamic texts, which include the Quran and the books of Sunnah, are similar but different to that of the Torah and Bible. There is no Quranic basis for the view that Eve was created from Adam's rib; instead the Quran relates a gender-neutral account in which God created "one soul and created from it its mate and dispersed from both of them many men and women" (Surah Al-Nisa 4:1), but there are hadiths that support the creation of woman "from a rib" (Sahih Bukhari 4:55:548, Sahih Bukhari 7:62:114, Sahih Muslim 8:3467, Sahih Muslim 8:3468). Eve is not blamed for enticing Adam to eat the forbidden fruit (nor is there the concept of original sin). On the contrary, the Quran indicates that "they ate of it" and were both to blame for that transgression (Quran 20:121-122).

There are subsequent hadiths (narrated by Abu Hurairah), the authenticity of which is contested, that hold that Muhammad designates Eve as the epitome of female betrayal. "Narrated Abu Hurrairah: The Prophet said, 'Were it not for Bani Israel, meat would not decay; and were it not for Eve, no woman would ever betray her husband.'" (Sahih Bukhari, Hadith 611, Volume 55) An identical but more explicit version is found in the second most respected book of prophetic narrations, Sahih Muslim. "Abu Hurrairah (May Allah be pleased with him) reported Allah's Messenger (May peace be upon him) as saying: Had it not been for Eve, woman would have never acted unfaithfully towards her husband." (Hadith 3471, Volume 8).

Bahá'í Faith

The Bahá'í account of Eve is described in Some Answered Questions. `Abdu'l-Bahá describes Eve as a symbol of the soul and as containing divine mysteries.^[40] The Bahá'í Faith claims the account of Eve in previous Abrahamic traditions is metaphorical.^[41]

Family tree

See also

• Hebat
• Mitochondrial Eve
• Paradise Lost
• Pre-Adamite
• Tomb of Eve

References

Bibliography

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Eve.

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Eve

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Eve.

• Alter, Robert (2004). The five books of Moses. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-33393-0.  A translation with commentary.
• Flood, John (2010). Representations of Eve in Antiquity and the English Middle Ages. Routledge.
• Mathews, K. A. (1996). Genesis 1-11:26. B&H Publishing Group. ISBN 9780805401011. 
• Norris, Pamela (1998). The Story of Eve. MacMillan Books.
• Pagels, Elaine (1989). Adam, Eve and the Serpent. Vintage Books.
• Paulinus Minorita. Compendium.
• Tumanov, Vladimir (2011). "Mary versus Eve: Paternal Uncertainty and the Christian View of Women". Neophilologus: International Journal of Modern and Mediaeval Language and Literature 95.4: 507-21.
• Turner, Laurence A. (2009). Genesis (2nd ed.). Sheffield: Phoenix Press. ISBN 9781906055653.