Gender in Jewish Tradition for GLOE's Judaism and Sexuality Class

(23) And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.

(24) God said, “Let the earth bring forth every kind of living creature: cattle, creeping things, and wild beasts of every kind.” And it was so. (25) God made wild beasts of every kind and cattle of every kind, and all kinds of creeping things of the earth. And God saw that this was good. (26) And God said, “Let us make adam in our image, after our likeness. They shall rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle, the whole earth, and all the creeping things that creep on earth.” (27) And God created the adam in God's image, in the image of God, God created it (masc.); male and female God created them.

13th c. France

נעשה אדם, the word אדם includes males and females. Proof that this is so is found in Genesis 5,2, when both the males and the females of the species are described as having been “created,” i.e. בראם, “God had created them.”

We also have a statement by Rav Hunna, who asks the rhetorical question: How do we know that Eve was also called אדם?

Answer (Isaiah 44:13) כתפארת אדם לשבת בית, which is translated by the Targum (1st c. Aramaic paraphrase/interpretation of the Hebrew Bible) as: “like the beauty of a woman who resides in a house; (or who transforms a house into a home).”

Furthermore, we have a verse in Numbers 31:35: ונפש אדם מן הנשים, “and human souls, of the women.”

(1) This is the record of Adam's line.—When God created adam, God made [adam] in the likeness of God; (2) male and female God created them. And when they were created, [God] blessed them and called them Adam.

300-500CE

And God said, “Let us make adam in our image, after our likeness..." (Genesis 1:26)...

Rabbi Yermiah ben Elazar said:

In the hour that the Holy One, Blessed be God, created the first adam, [God] created it as an androgynos, thus it is written (Genesis 5:2), "...Male and female [God] created them [...and called their name Adam]."

Rabbi Samuel ben Nachman said:

In the hour that the Holy One Blessed be God created the first adam, [God] created it double-faced, then [God] split [the adam] and made [the adam] of two backs, one back on this side and one back on the other side…

Rabbi Tanhuma in the name of Rabbi Benayah and Rabbi Berechya in the name of Rabbi Elazar said:

In the hour that the Holy One Blessed be God created the first adam, [God] created it as an amorphous mass (golem), extending from one end of the world to the other, as it is written (Psalm 139:16): Your eyes saw my unformed mass (galmi)."

זכר ונקבה ברא אותם, “God created them as possessing male and female organs.”

As it is explained in the Torah (Genesis 2:21) "and [God] took one of the [adam's] ribs/sides..."

(20) And the adam gave names to all the cattle and to the birds of the sky and to all the wild beasts; but for adam no fitting helper was found. (21) So Adonai God cast a deep sleep upon the adam; and, while [the adam] slept, God took one of [adam's] ribs/sides and closed up the flesh at that spot. (22) And Adonai God fashioned the rib/side that [God] had taken from the adam into a woman (isha); and [God] brought her to the adam.

(23) Then the adam said,

“This one at last

Is bone of my bones

And flesh of my flesh.

This one shall be called Woman (isha),

For from Man (ish) was she taken.”

(24) Hence a man (ish) leaves his father and mother and clings to his woman (isha), so that they become one flesh.

(25) The two of them were naked, the adam and [the adam's] woman, yet they felt no shame.

(17) Allow us, then, to cross your country. We will not pass through fields or vineyards, and we will not drink water from wells. We will follow the king’s highway, turning off neither to the right nor to the left until we have crossed your territory.”

(20) Thus he will not act haughtily toward his fellows or deviate from the Instruction to the right or to the left, to the end that he and his descendants may reign long in the midst of Israel.

R. Ammi stated: Abraham and Sarah were originally tumtumin; for it is said, (Isaiah 51:1) "Look unto to the rock whence you were hewn and to the hole of the pit whence you were dug," and this is followed by the text (Isaiah 51:2), "Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bore you."

R. Nahman stated in the name of Rabbah b. Abbuha: Our mother Sarah was an aylonit; for it is said, And Sarai was barren; she had no child, she had not even a womb.