Creating Eve: Rabbinic and Contemporary Perspectives on the First Woman in the Torah

The Five Books of Moses translation by Everett Fox

Genesis 1:26-27

²⁶ God said:

Let us make humankind, in our image, according to our likeness!

Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the fowl of the

heavens, animals, all the earth, and all crawling things that

crawl about upon the earth.

²⁷ So God created humankind in his image,

in the image of God did he create it,

male and female he created them.

God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality by Phyllis Trible. Pp. 17-19.

The vehicle of this metaphor (“male and female”) belongs to the vocabulary of humanity in the poem. This vocabulary includes three nouns and two pronouns. The nouns are humankind (ha-adam) and male and female (zachar u’nekeivah). Their corresponding pronouns are him (oto) and them (otam). All five words are objects of the verb create with God as its subject. Given the parallel usage of this vocabulary, interactions among the five words elucidate their shared and particular meanings.

First, the shift from singular to plural pronouns shows clearly that ha-adam is not one single creature who is both male and female but rather two creatures, one male and one female. This emphasis is reinforced in the proposal of God that immediately precedes verse 27. There a plural form “let them have dominion,” refers back to the singular word, adam“And God said, ‘Let us make humankind [adam] in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion…” (Gen. 1:26 RSV)These shifts from singular to plural disallow an androgynous interpretation of ha’adam. From the beginning humankind exists as two creatures, not as one creature with double sex. Genesis 5:1b-2 provides an external witness to this point:

When God created humankind [adam],

In the likeness of God made he him;

Male and female created he them

And blessed them and called their name humankind [adam]

When they were created.

Second, the singular word ha-adam, with its singular pronoun oto, shows that male and female are not opposite but rather harmonious sexes. Ha-adam is not an original unity that is subsequently split apart by sexual division. Instead it is the original unity that is at the same time the original differentiation. From the beginning, the word humankind is synonymous with the phrase “male and female,” though the components of this phrase are not synonymous with each other. Unity embraces sexual differentiation; it does not impose sexual identicalness. Thus the vocabulary of humanity in the poem disallows interpretations of the sexes as either antonyms or synonyms. It recognizes distinction within harmony.

Third, the parallelism between ha-adam and “male and female” shows further that sexual differentiation does not mean hierarchy but rather equality. Created simultaneously, male and female are not superior and subordinate. Neither has the power over each other; in fact, both are given equal power. Though the parallelism within the poem alone suggests this latter point, the context substantiates it. As we have seen in the verse immediately preceding, God proposes, by using a plural verb form, that adam be given dominion over all the earth: “let them have dominion” (1:26 RSV). Moreover, in the verses that follow our poem God blesses male and female, using the plural “them,” and the deity consistently speaks “to them” with plural verb forms (1:28-29). Specifically, God reaffirms the power which they both have over the earth: “And God said to them...have dominion”. Throughout this section, then, male and female are treated equally. In plural pronouns and verbs, both are present and both have equal power over the earth. At the same time, neither is given dominion over the other.

Fourth, by virtue of what they do not say, these references to humanity in Genesis 1:27 allow freedom in the interpretation of male and female. The human creation poeticized in this verse is not delineated by sexual relationships, roles, characteristics, attitudes, or emotions. To be sure, the context itself identifies two responsibilities for humankind, procreation (1:28) and dominion over the earth (1:26, 1:28), but it does not differentiate between the sexes in assigning this work. Since the first of these responsibilities, procreation, parallels the divine command given to the fish of the sea and the birds of the heavens, who are not themselves explicitly designated male and female (1:22), the use of the phrase “male and female” in 1:27 does not itself signify the potential for human fertility but rather indicates, along with other items, the uniqueness of humankind in creation...

"Woman, a Power Equal to Man: Translation of Woman as a “fit helpmate” for Man is Questioned" by By R. David Freedman in Biblical Archeology Review 09:01 (Jan/Feb 1983)

The two Hebrew words that describe the position of the to-be-created woman vis-a-vis the man are ezer k'negdô.

I believe the customary translation of these two words, despite its near universal adoption, is wrong. That is not what the words are intended to convey. They should be translated instead to mean approximately “a power equal to man.” † That is, when God concluded that he would create another creature so that man would not be alone, he decided to make “a power equal to him,” someone whose strength was equal to man’s. Woman was not intended to be merely man’s helper. She was to be instead his partner.

A careful study of the two Hebrew words involved will demonstrate this. The Hebrew word ezer is a combination of two roots, one 'z-r meaning “to rescue,” “to save,” and the other g-z-r meaning “to be strong.” The difference is in the first sign. The raised
' stands for the letter
ayin. Today in Hebrew the letter is often silent. In ancient times it was a guttural sound in the back of the throat. The symbol g stands for the letter ghayyin, a guttural much like ancient Hebrew
ayin, but pronounced higher up in the throat. Some ancient Semitic languages distinguished between the two signs; others did not. For example, Ugaritic maintains a distinction between
ayin and ghayyin. Hebrew no longer does.

In Phoenicia in about 1500 B.C.E. these two different phonemes, or sounds, began to be written in the same way; that is, they were represented by the same sign. As the scholars would say, the two phonemes merged into one grapheme. Later the pronunciation also merged. In Hebrew the merger appears to have taken place somewhat later, around 1200 B.C.E. Thus, when the Bible was written, what originally had been two roots of
ezer, one with an
ayin and one with a ghayyin, had merged into one. With the merger of the writing and pronunciation came the merger of meaning. The word
ezer could mean either “to save” ('z-r) or “to be strong” (g-z-r). But in time the root
'z-r was always interpreted as “to help,” a mixture of both nuances.