4b On the day YHWH Elohim made the earth and the heavens, 5 no vegetation yet being on the earth, no plant yet springing up (for YHWH Elohim had not caused it to rain on the earth and there was no man to till the ground; 6 only a mist rose from the earth and watered the surface of the ground), 7 then YHWH Elohim fashioned some dust of the ground into a man (Hebrew adam). He breathed the breath of life into his nostrils and he became a living being. (2:4b-7)
Yahweh God is portrayed as a potter using earth to fashion a man, called adam in Hebrew. One can almost picture God on his knees in the clay, working over the body, manually shaping the man's physical form. This picture of God as craftsman is a good example of the Yahwist's use of anthropomorphic language; that is, he describes God in human terms. Note also how life resulted only after God infused the body with his own breath. These details imply that a human person consists of both physical body and divine life-breath.
These few verses describe a place called Eden, a garden of lush plantings that included the tree of life. Verses 10-15 locate this garden somewhere in relation to the two rivers that define Mesopotamia, the Tigris and Euphrates (see Figure 1.3). This place was the locale of all good things, including intimate fellowship with God.
Figure 1.3 Map of the Ancient Middle East with Primeval Story Commentary. Many of the events of the Primeval Story have identifiable locations within Mesopotamia.
| Figure 1.B Enki Enki was the god of the subterranean fresh water ocean. He was also the god of wisdom, magic, and the arts of civilization, and is pictured here on this cylinder seal impression with water and fish flowing from his shoulders. c. 2500 B.C.E. Cylinder seal of Adda, the scribe. Britism Museum (1922), page 235. |
The man was placed in Eden to tend it, not simply to enjoy it. Perhaps we can extrapolate a lesson that even from the beginning humanity's task was to be the caretaker of the world. Of all the good things in the garden, God only prohibited the man from sampling the tree of knowledge. The punishment for disobedience was death. The tree of knowledge plays a crucial role in Genesis 3, and eating from it becomes the quintessential symbol of human defiance.
God was concerned that he might get lonely. So animals were fashioned to provide companionship. The man named the animals, but still he found no fit friend. The animals, not being his equal, failed to satisfy his deeper longing. Note that verse 20b is the first time the Hebrew text uses the word adam as a personal name.
Yahweh, as is typical of this epic, was sensitive to innate human needs and wanted to provide genuine fulfillment for the man he had fashioned. He crafted a woman out of the man's body so that they would be of the same substance. Later (3:20) Adam gave her the name Eve, which means "mother of all things."
The choice of the rib, being so specific and unusual, seems deliberate. The Hebrew word for "rib" can also mean "side." Perhaps the choice of this word implies that the man and the woman were meant to be side-by-side, or in other words, to complement each other.
The woman is now the one who is "a helper matched to him," according to the Hebrew text (see Clines 1990). The term "helper" does not imply inferiority. In support we need only cite Exodus 18:4, where God is described as a helper to Moses using the same term ezer. The original text uses a pun on the word man, which can be mirrored by the pun in English: "man" is ish and "woman" is ishah. This is yet another way of affirming the essential relatedness of man and woman.
These words are comments of the narrator from a time when marriage had become an established social practice--obviously from a much later time than the implied setting of creation. They comment on the oneness of a man and a woman in marriage. The primary allegiance will be to the marriage partner, rather than to one's parents.
Becoming "one flesh" denotes the spiritual, emotional, and sexual union that characterizes marriage. Though without clothes, the original couple were unabashed at their nakedness, and felt no need to shield themselves from the other's gaze. Their relationship was characterized by an almost childlike innocence and naiveté.
Overall, this account stresses God's involvement with the newly fashioned creatures. Deity lived in intimate association with humanity in the garden of Eden. What happens next in the story explains why humanity no longer lives in the immediate presence of God in a perfect world.
Naked and Crafty. The Hebrew text makes a subtle connection between Genesis 2 and 3. Whereas the primeval couple was "naked" (Hebrew arom), the serpent was "crafty" (Hebrew arum). This is a literary signal that these two chapters form a unified story. Another signal is the continuation of the name YHWH Elohim to refer to God. This is a relatively rare designation, and is found only in the Yahwist source.
24 Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and adheres to his wife, and they become one flesh. 25 And the man and the woman were both naked, but they were not ashamed. (2:24-25)
21 YHWH Elohim cast a deep sleep upon the man. While he slept he took one of his ribs and closed up with flesh the place where it had been. 22 YHWH Elohim built a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man. He brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, "Finally this is bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. Let her be called woman because she was taken out of man." (2:21-23)
Names. In the ancient world, having authority to give names implied mastery (see Marks 1995). Some see in the man's naming the animals an early form of scientific classification and an attempt to order the world in which he lived.
18 Then YHWH Elohim said, "It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper matched to him." 19 So out of the ground YHWH Elohim formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would name them. Whatever the man named each living creature, that became its name. 20 The man named all the beasts, birds, and living things. But Adam had no helper matched to him. (2:18-20)
15 YHWH Elohim took the man and placed him in the garden of Eden to till it and oversee it. 16 YHWH Elohim commanded the man, "You may eat from any tree of the garden; 17 except you shall not eat from the tree of good and bad knowledge. On the day you eat from it you shall die." (2:15-17)
Enki and Ninhursag. The ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia had their own story of origins in a primeval wonderland. Enki (see Figure 1.B) and Ninhursag were two gods, as well as husband and wife, who enjoyed goodness as long as they stayed near the tree of life (see Pritchard 1969: 37-41). They lived in a place called Dilmun.
Eden. The term is related to the Sumerian word edin, which refers to the fertile steppe region in the Mesopotamian basin, later to become barren. The Babylonian word edinu then came to mean "plain, desert." This derivation may be superseded by evidence from the bilingual Tell-Fekheriyeh statue of Adad-iti (see Figure 1.5), which uses the word 'dn in the sense of "enrich" when describing a god who provides all things necessary to produce food. Consequently eden may mean "place of luxuriance" rather than "steppe" (see Millard and Bordreuil 1982: 140). It was translated paradeisos in the Septuagint, which in turn became "paradise" in English. By locating Eden in proximity to the Tigris, Euphrates, Pishon, and Gihon rivers the text seems to imply that it lay somewhere in Mesopotamia. Eden has never been located, nor should we expect to find it. Sauer (1996) speculates that the Kuwait River may be the ancient Pishon.
8 YHWH Elohim planted a garden in Eden in the east and there put the man he had fashioned. 9 YHWH Elohim caused to grow from the ground every tree that was pleasant to view and good to eat, including the tree of life in the middle of the garden, and the tree of good and bad knowledge. (2:8-9)
Adam. The term adam as used in Genesis is ambiguous. It can variously designate humanity collectively (as in 1:24, 27), the first man (when used with the definite article the, as in chapters 2-3), or the personal name Adam (when used without the definite article, as in 5:3). His mate is referred to in general terms as "the woman" or "his woman" until 3:20 when she is named chavvah, Eve, which means "life." The Adam and Eve described in the Yahwist creation story are the first individuals, yet at the same time they are archetypal humans, "everyman" and "everywoman."
Notice how many times the words "earth" and "ground" are used. The "earthiness" of the story suggests it comes out of an agricultural setting. The story reinforces a connection between earth and humanness by a linguistic pun in the Hebrew text: "ground" is adamah and "man" is adam. Word-play occurs frequently in the Hebrew Bible and was often used to make a serious point. We could duplicate the pun with humus and human; that is, if our culture did not think puns were silly.
