There was no sin in the Garden. Through eating the forbidden fruit, Eve became life's channel – bringing within the sphere of the human all that for good and for ill, life represents.
EVE MALIGNANT OR MALIGNED?
by Mary Phil Korsak
BRIEF SUMMARY
Biblical interpretation has often connected Eve's transgression with sin and
death. In the second century B.C.E., Ben Sirach commented:
From a woman sin had its beginning
and because of her we all die (Sir 25,24).
From Paul onwards, Christian theology has enlarged on this them
Adam
was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor (1
Tim 2,14)
and the accusations aimed at a malignant Eve have not stopped since....
Today, however, feminists
are trying to check or challenge this trend: claiming that Eve has been maligned,
they are opening up new perspectives for discussion.
As a Bible scholar
and translator who has spent many years with the Hebrew text of Genesis in
an attempt to produce a fresh rendering in English, I wish to draw attention
to certain textual implications concerning Eve, that merit consideration.
This article will highlight certain words, their etymology and context, to
propose a different portrait of Eve.
The purpose of
my work with the Hebrew text of Genesis, devoting days or weeks to the translation
of each word, was to produce a translation that captures the formal qualities
of the text and thus to convey something of its poetry to the English reader.
The new version is entitled At the start... Genesis made new. Listening
to commentaries on Genesis, after plunging into the text in this way, sometimes
proves perplexing.
This past year,
for instance, I attended two lectures on Adam and Eve by Hebrew scholars,
both university-level teachers, who on these two occasions were addressing
public audiences. The first lecturer spent a great deal of time talking about
the apple that was not there. The non-existent apple was an illustration of
how ill-founded textual interpretation can survive and flourish independently
of the original text. It served as a light introduction to another absentee:
the first lecturer said that there was no sin in the garden of Eden. Personally
I heartily agreed with him, but most of the audience reacted differently:
this statement caused a mild uproar. People got up and claimed their faith
was being attacked, that the "felix culpa" was a necessary precursor
of the redeemer and so on.... Feeling ran high, and the lecturer got a bit
left out, while members of the audience made public declarations about their
beliefs.
The second lecturer,
on the other hand, dwelt at length on the nature of sin in the garden. The
analysis of Ricoeur was invoked to develop a picture of sin in three dimensions.
The sin of the woman was said to be stupidity: in this she represents all
humankind (not only womankind). The sin of the man lay in his bad decision-making.
The serpent was said to symbolize that part of the human being which escapes
our control. In the summary, the serpent, the man and the woman were seen
to represent three relationships to sin: the serpent that part of us which
is victim, the man that part of us which is responsible, the woman that part
of us which is guilty.
The declared subject
of my article is Eve and the accusation levelled at her of having brought
sin and death into the world. Has she been maligned? The freeing of the garden
from sin, effected by my first speaker, would seem to suggest so. Is she guilty,
though not alone in her responsibility, of introducing the evil of sin into
the world? The second speaker defended this interpretation. To clarify the
matter, I wish to turn to the early chapters of Genesis, where Eve is to be
found.
I would like to
invite you to broach the text as you would a literary masterpiece, rather
than as an object for historical analysis, to listen to it, as you might listen
to a piece of music, to be aware of its wholeness and to be receptive to its
suggestiveness: I will allot myself the role of music-lover, who wishes to
share what she hears. If, in the end, you feel that there is a possible shift
of emphasis from the importance of being to the importance of becoming, from
an absorption with right and wrong to a celebration of growth, our time will
not have been wasted. My concern will be to follow Eve, observing her as she
comes to be, and so setting her free of judgmental definitions that lock her
in a given position.
I wish to explore
the first five chapters of Genesis from divine creation (Gen 1 and 2) to human
pro-creation, as recorded of Adam's breed (Gen 5). Repetitions and reminiscences
lead the listener backward and forward through the text as the different parts
relate to the whole: the movements of this piece of music do not follow on
one another in an unbroken line of continuity. Each movement has a new beginning
and an ending of its own. Each movement has a different center of interest,
a different context, a different tonality. Eve, if I may steal a march on
the text by giving her this name, appears in one form or another in each of
the first three movements.
The first movement
is a grand overture. The days of creation crescendo to a climax on the sixth
day, before falling away to stillness on the seventh. There are two leit-motifs
here. Elohim creates by separating, "light" from "darkness",
heavenly "waters" from earth's "waters", "earth"
from "seas", "day" from "night". In the second
motif all forms of life created by Elohim are fertile: plants, trees,
water creatures, flying things. On the sixth day, Elohim makes a
human, adam, different from other living creatures: it is specifically
described as being in Elohim's "image" and "likeness".
The sexual nature of ha-adam, "the human" is explicitly
mentioned: "the human" is zachar u neqeva, "male and female".
Male and female are potentially fertile but at this stage they do not appear
to be separated. Referring to the human couple, the text switches from "them"
to "it" and back to "them" again. Some commentators conclude
that ha-adam is androgynous. The human, male and female, is, are
instructed to be fruitful, to subject the earth, to govern other creatures
and to enjoy a vegetarian diet. Here is a first glimpse of a future Eve. She
is the female side of ha-adam.
Elohim
said
We will make a
groundling (adam)
in our image,
after our likeness
Let them govern
the fish of the sea
the fowl of the
skies, the cattle, all the earth
every creeper
that creeps on the earth
Elohim created
the groundling in his image
created it in
the image of Elohim
male and female
created them
Elohim blessed
them
Elohim said to
them
Be fruitful, increase,
fill the earth, subject it
Govern the fish
of the sea, the fowl of the skies
every beast that
creeps on the earth
Elohim said, Here
I give you
all plants seeding
seed upon the face of all the earth
and every tree
with tree-fruit in it seeding seed
It shall be for
you for eating
And for every
beast of the earth
for every fowl
of the skies
for all that creeps
on the earth with living soul in it
all green of plants
for eating
It was so
Elohim saw all
he had made Here! it was very good
It was evening,
it was morning
The sixth day
(Gen 1,26-31)
It is noteworthy that, until it is given as a proper name to
the father of Seth and his descendents in chapter 4, verse 25:
Adam
knew his woman again
She bred a son
She called his
name Seth (Gen 4,25)
ha-adam remains a generic term. It applies to the human couple. That
is why in 3,23, for instance, I translate the pronoun for ha-adam
by "it" and not "him":
HWH Elohim sent
it away from the garden of Eden
to serve the ground
from which it was taken (Gen 3,23)
In cases where ha-adam refers to the male alone, careful observation
shows that "the woman" is always mentioned. The expression ha-adam
v ishto, "the groundling and his woman" in 2,25, to quote one
instance, is comparable to the phrase "the bear and its mate", in
which the female is as fully "bear" as the male:
The
two of them were naked
the groundling
and his woman
they were not
ashamed (Gen 2,25)
The second movement
of my so-called symphony begins with the second account of creation in chapter
2, verse 4, and ends with chapter 3, verse 24, when ha-adam is expelled
from the garden. The central theme of this movement is the garden in Eden
and what occurs there.
Verses 21-23 of
chapter 2 describe how Elohim takes a side from ha-adam
and builds it into woman. Though the creative act is not explicitly described
as an act of separation, (the verb badal, "to separate",
which appears five times in chapter 1, is not used), there is a reminiscence
here of the separation of light from darkness, earth from seas, day from night.
The zachar u neqeva, male and female of chapter 1, 26-28 appear to
be united. In chapter 2 they are separated from one another and receive new
names, ish and isha, man and woman:
YHWH
Elohim made a swoon fall upon the groundling
it slept
He took one of
its sides
and closed up
the flesh in its place
YHWH Elohim built
the side
he had taken from
the groundling into woman
He brought her
to the groundling
The groundling
said
This one this
time
is bone from my
bone
flesh from my
flesh
This one shall
be called wo-man
for from man
she has been taken
this one (Gen 2,21-23)
As in chapter 1, when the couples "light and darkness, etc..." are
created, no witness is present. In chapter 1, Elohim is alone. In
chapter 2, ha-adam is in a comatose state, tardema, "torpor"
or "swoon": it is asleep. Like the separated couples of
chapter 1, ish and isha, man and woman, are similar
and dissimilar. Like them, they are close to one another and, at the same
time, they strain apart in a state of tension that is characteristic of life
in general and of the human couple in particular.
At language level,
the sameness of the couple is expressed in the common syllable ish,
found in ish and isha, "man" and "wo-man".
The odd syllable in isha, "wo-man", expresses their
difference. "Wo-man" is also said to be negdo, "the
counterpart" of ha-adam (Gen 2,18.20). The root neged expresses
proximity and opposition. Here, in the differentiated form of a "woman",
confronting her partner "man", is a second glimpse of Eve. Thanks
to her appearance, ish, man, recognizes his own identity. Although
tradition has often taught otherwise, there is no mention of "man"
as a potentially independent human being before this point in the text.
Presented first
as the female aspect of the human being, second as "wo-man", the
counterpart of "man", Eve emerges from anonymous womanhood as a
complete human being in chapter 3. She speaks (albeit with a serpent), she
invents (by adding the words "you shall not touch" to Elohim's
injunction: "you shall not eat"), she desires (the fruit of the
tree), she chooses (between the serpent's suggestion and Elohim's
command), she acts on her choice (by taking and eating) and then gives the
fruit to her man:
The woman said to the serpent
We
will eat the fruit of the trees of the garden
but of the fruit
of the tree
in the middle
of the garden, Elohim said
You shall not
eat of it, you shall not touch it
lest you die
The serpent said
to the woman
Die! you shall
not die
No, Elohim knows
that the day you eat of it
your eyes will
be opened
and you will be
as Elohim knowing good and bad
The woman saw
that the tree was good for eating
yes, an allurement
to the eyes
and that the tree
was attractive to get insight
She took of its
fruit and ate
She also gave
to her man with her and he ate (Gen 3,2-6)
Her giving of food recalls the giving of food by Elohim to ha-adam
in 1,29: "Here I give you... all plants... and every tree. It shall be
for you for eating".
The woman takes
the initiative, her man follows her in eating. Together they become aware
of their nakedness, cover themselves, and hide. They hide. Where? In the tree
in the middle of the garden:
They
heard the voice of YHWH Elohim
walking in the
garden in the breeze of the day
The groundling
and his woman hid from YHWH Elohim
in the middle
of the tree of the garden (Gen 3,8)
I will come back to the tree later.
Eve's initiative brings about
a change of context from the symbolic world of the garden to the real world
such as we know it, with its alienation from God, and the fear and insecurity
that accompany self-awareness and self-determination. The change that occurs
is marked by a transformation of the status of serpent, woman and man. The
talking serpent is reduced to an ordinary serpent. The woman knows birth-pangs
and her husband's ruling. ha-adam must toil to procure food and enters
the cycle of life and death. The listener realizes that the text so far has
involved a looking backward from the vantage point of everyday reality to
the imaginary world of myth. In the symbolic world, the woman played a key
role. At this point in the story, at the brink that divides the symbolic from
the real, Eve is given her name by ha-adam. The Hebrew text reads:
The
groundling called his woman's name Life (Eve)
for she is the mother
of all that lives (Gen 3,20)
The wordplay between hawwa and hay is vital to a correct
reading of the text. It is usually understood from translations that Eve receives
her name because she is the mother of humankind. In The Revised Standard
Version, for instance, Genesis 3,20 reads: "The man called his wife's
name Eve because she was the mother of all living". As the wordplay on
hawwa and hay is relegated to a footnote, the reader naturally
puts the stress on the word "mother". The text does not
say, however, that "she was the mother of all living" but
that "she was the mother of all living". The root hava,
from which Eve's name derives, is cognate with the root haya, with
its derivation hay. Both roots connote living, the first in the sense of dwelling,
the second in the sense of being alive. However, it is the sound of the words
that makes an impact here on the listener. The assonance between hawwa
and hay suggests a link at the level of meaning. Translators of the
"Buber School" convey this by calling Eve "Leben" (Buber
and Rosensweig, 1930), "Vive" (Flegg, 1946), "Vivante"
(Chouraqui, 1982), "Life-Giver" (Fox 1983), "Life" (Korsak,
1991). The main point of verse 3,20 is Eve's connection with Life.
Only secondarily, but very suitably, can she be considered the mother of humankind.
It is argued here that
the appellations, hawwa, mother of hay, connect Eve with
the symbolic world of the garden, in which the central reality is the tree
grown by YHWH Elohim among "all trees attractive to see and
good for eating". The tree is first presented as ets ha-hayim,
the "tree of life":
YHWH
Elohim made sprout from the ground
all trees attractive
to see and good for eating
the tree of life
in the middle of the garden
and the tree of
the knowing of good and bad (Gen 2,9)
hawwa, hay, ha-hayim: the assonance of these words points to the
woman/life/tree-of-life relationship.
It has been shown that Eve
plays a key role in the scene with the serpent in chapter 3. The central reality
around which the action turns is the tree, first described in chapter 3 as
"the tree in the middle of the garden". This tree is at the heart
of the woman-serpent discussion. It is also the center of the woman's activity.
Eve takes and eats of the fruit of the tree. An examination of the nature
of the tree reveals the nature of Eve's act. In Genesis 2,9, three things
are said of the tree: it is the tree of life, the tree in the middle of the
garden, and the tree of the knowing of good and bad. In Genesis 2,17, YHWH
Elohim says of the tree of the knowing of good and bad:
on
the day you eat of it
die! you shall
die (Gen 2,17)
This tree is also the tree of death.
If the symbolic nature of
the tree is decoded, the message reads as follows: by eating of the fruit
of the tree, Eve becomes life's channel bringing within the sphere of human
experience all that life represents for good and bad. The gift of life is
attended by its concomitant, death. The only aspect of life denied the human
being is life forever, again symbolized by the tree of life, this time guarded
by "the Cherubim and the scorching, turning sword":
He
cast out the groundling
and made dwell
east of the garden of Eden
the Cherubim and
the scorching, turning sword
to keep the road
to the tree of life (Gen 3,24)
Here is a third picture of Eve. First female, then woman, she is here perceived
as fully human: she plays a role in human destiny and receives a personal
name.
The name Eve not
only points backward to the symbolic world: it also points forward to the
real world. In the symbolic world, Eve eats of the tree of life. In the real
world she will hand life on by giving birth to sons. This secondary implication
of the name "Eve" should not conceal its primary meaning, although
she is also the "mother of humankind".
The name "Eve" appears only twice in the book of Genesis. The second
mention is in chapter 4. At the beginning of what I have called a third movement,
the opening verse tells how Eve gives birth to Cain:
The
groundling knew his woman Eve
She conceived
and bred Acquisition (Cain)
She said, I have
acquired a man with YHWH (Gen 4,1)
Chapter 4 is mainly taken up with Cain's murder of Abel, his banishment from
before the face of YHWH, and the violence of his line. At the end
of the chapter, Eve gives birth to a third son, Seth, who replaces Abel and
whose line is said to invoke the name of YHWH:
Adam
knew his woman again
She bred a son
She called his
name Seth
"for Elohim
has set another seed in Abel's place
yes, Cain killed
him"
A son was bred
for Seth also
He called his
name Enosh
Then they began
to call upon the name of YHWH (Gen 4,25-26)
When Eve gives birth to Cain, she is called by her proper name. Her man has
not yet received a proper name. He is still ha-adam, "the groundling"
with the definite article:
The
groundling knew his woman Eve (Gen 4,1)
At the end of the chapter, when Seth is born, the situation is reversed. Eve
is no longer called by her proper name: she is "his woman" and Adam
is given his proper name for the first time. This is signaled by the absence
of the definite article: he is Adam, not ha-adam:
Adam
knew his woman again (Gen 4,26)
The naming of Adam prepares the last movement of the "symphony",
in chapter 5, which is taken up with the record of Adam's line, descending
through Seth, and the disappearance of Eve from the Hebrew Bible. Her death
is nowhere mentioned.
The Eve of chapter
4 speaks at the beginning of the chapter, when she gives birth to Cain, and
again at the end, when she gives birth to Seth. Can anything be learned from
what she says? A psychologist might well discern a certain self-absorption
in her attitude to the first birth. She situates herself at the center of
this experience:
The
groundling knew his woman Eve
She conceived
and bred Acquisition (Cain)
She said, I have
acquired a man with YHWH (Gen 4,1)
The new-born son and YHWH are given secondary places and Eve ignores
the husband-father.
When Seth is born,
on the contrary, Eve's words situate Elohim as subject of the action,
responsible for the birth, and Eve assumes a background position:
Adam
knew his woman again
She bred a son
She called his
name Seth
"for Elohim
has set another seed in Abel's place
yes, Cain killed
him (Gen 4,25)
The comment Eve makes on the birth of Seth and the murder of Abel by Cain
appears to me to be non-judgmental. Nothing indicates, as is suggested by
Cassuto, in his Commentary on the Book of Genesis (1961), that her
words are "meekly" spoken. Eve expresses the facts with stark simplicity:
the tragic loss of two sons (one dead, the other exiled) is effaced by a third
birth, which ushers in a new, God-centered beginning for humankind:
Then
they began to call upon the name of YHWH (Gen 4,26)
In the intervening story about Cain, sin and death enter the world for the
first time. The word "sin" does not appear in the text before the
fourth chapter. Indeed, Eve is not the instigator of sin and death here: she
is their victim. The death of a son is a terrible experience. In Mary's case,
Christianity has made much of this theme. It is a more terrible experience,
however, to have one son murder another. Yet no-one pays attention to Eve
as mother in this context. The fourth picture of Eve is generally ignored.
I have tried to present here four images of Eve. These images do not follow
on one another in a logical sequence. Rather, they are superimposed upon one
another. Coexisting at different levels, they play one against the other.
Nevertheless, their sequence carries the listener/reader forward in a dynamic
movement that speaks of growth: male and female precede man and woman, who
precede Adam and Eve.
More rational
commentators than I tend to develop certain aspects of the text so that textual
interpretation concerning Eve has too often been limited to a concern for
what is good and what is bad. My approach has been different. Working with
the words of Genesis has led me to perceive the text as a literary masterpiece,
as poetry. In poetry, words are not limiting. They invite the listener/reader
to set out without necessarily seeing the end in view. They open up possibilities
that expose the listener/reader to the risk of involvement. For this reason,
I prefer to end this essay without coming to definitive conclusions about
Eve.
Nevertheless,
I will add one comment. The current interpretation, which depreciates woman,
seems to me alien to Hebrew thought. It acts as an obstacle to reading the
text in a dynamic fashion, to perceiving that the text is concerned with "becoming"
in the Hebrew sense, rather than with "being" in the Greek sense.
The way in which these two conceptions of reality differ may be illustrated
by the following comparison. In the middle ages, Rashi understood God's self-definition
in Exodus 3,14 to mean "I will be what I will be". This definition
is open-ended. Translations current in English Bibles, on the contrary, still
give preference to a static formula: "I am; that is who I am" (New
English Bible, 1970).
Published in the review Cross Currents, U.S.A. winter 1994/1995.
www.crosscurrents.org