Out of Two, Oneness: An Exegesis of Genesis 2:15-25

10/14/09

INTRODUCTION

The second chapter of Genesis is a story that elaborates on the creation of humankind, and more specifically of male and female.  As the only Ancient Near Eastern myth that gives the creation of woman a distinct account, this is a text that invites the reader into a discussion that questions conventional anthropology, gender relationships, and the tendency to dichotomize.  God is interested in the wholeness and unity of his harmoniously created order, and becomes concerned that his crowning achievement, the human being, is somehow incomplete.  The paradox, then, is that he facilitates the consummation of his perfect unity by dividing the human in two: male and female.  The distinction he made, however, was not without a purpose.  As humans, the reader of the story is already aware of the results: there are animals, who are different from humans, and there are men and there are women, and they are strongly attracted to each other.  The point of the story, then, is to address the question of why this is the status quo.

TEXT AND TRANSLATION

1. TEXT

A comparison of ten English translations reveals little undisputed space in this text.  The variations seem to stem from hermeneutical influences on the translation rather than from inconsistency in the Hebrew manuscripts. The most extreme variation is the use of the proper name Adam in every major translation except the NRSV and Young’s Literal Translation which use “the man.” Also of interest here is the use in verse 18 of “helper/counterpart” in YLT, “companion/corresponds” in the NET and “helper/partner” in the NRSV which emphasize an equality, as contrasted by “helper/suitable for” in the NIV and NASB or the more archaic rendering “help meet” of the KJV which underscore a subordination.  Additionally, all translations have “rib” in verse 21 except the NET which instead uses “side.”

1. TRANSLATION

One major problem for translating this passage is the central importance and frequency of wordplay in the Hebrew text.  It becomes a challenge to simultaneously provide an accurate word for word equivalence while faithfully rendering the assonance present in the Hebrew words, which bears a significant influence on the text’s reception and interpretation.  Of the translations I consulted, the NRSV seems to most accurately treat the text and preserve to the best possible degree its nuance.  The only necessary amendments to the NRSV would be the use of “the groundling” in place of “the man” to uphold the wordplay between “ground” and “groundling,” and to borrow the NET’s use of “side” in place of “rib.”

CONTEXT

1. HISTORICAL CONTEXT

This passage comprises the latter part of the second creation account in Genesis.  Thus, it is set, whether actually or mythologically, in primordial history.  Within the second account, this specific pericope follows the creation by Yahweh Elohim of the heavens, the earth, and the groundling into whom he breathed life.  It includes the differentiation of the groundling into man and woman, and precedes the further primordial development of their expulsion from the garden Eden.  The distinct account of the creation of woman is without parallel in all the known literature of the ancient Near East.

According to the documentary hypothesis commonly accepted by modern scholarship, this account is the earlier of the two creation stories, and its authorship dates back to the time of David during the 10th century.

It introduces the Patriarchal theme of the Hebrew Bible and begins its narrative genealogy with Adam and Eve.  As such it also underscores the universality and oneness of Yahweh Elohim by expressing that all people spawned from one originally created pair.

1. LITERARY CONTEXT

The first chapter of Genesis outlines the day by day creation story and ends with the creation of humankind, both male and female, followed by God’s rest on the seventh day.  Chapter two summarizes the creation until the creation of humankind, and then elaborates on this point until its conclusion in verse 25.  Thus, this pericope serves as a pivot between the first creation account, and the account of the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden in chapter 3.  Thus the climax of the story of creation becomes the starting point point of the decline in subsequent chapters.  The tension between the cosmological focus of the first account, and the anthropological nature of this one serves to introduce the dramatic tension of divine-human interaction that is told by the rest of the scripture.

FORM AND STRUCTURE

1. FORM

This pericope is an etiological narrative.  In contrast with the poetic-cosmogonic creation story in chapter 1, chapter 2 is a prosaic-anthropological answer to the ultimate question: what is humankind and where did we come from?

Thus, the pericope more specifically addresses how male and female came to be differentiated, and why their reciprocal attraction is so compelling.

It also outlines the relationships between humans and God, between humans and the rest of creation, and between humans and each other.  This emphasis reaches a climax in verse 18, in which the words “not good” stand in glaring contrast with the sevenfold repetition of “and it was good” in the first account.

The implication is not that God’s creation is intrinsically flawed, but rather it becomes “not good” when characterized by isolation rather than the harmonious wholeness intended for it.

1. STRUCTURE

As an etiological narrative, the pericope outlines the answer to the question “who or what are we humans?” as follows:

1. 1. We are created by God for a purpose (verses 15-17)

1. 1. 1. to maintain/protect his creation (15)
      2. to be obedient (16-17)

1. 1. We were intended to have a harmonious relationship (18-20)

1. 1. 1. with the rest of creation (19-20)
      2. with other human beings (23-25)

Since it is a narrative, these themes are interwoven and repeated throughout, rather than stated in a clearly delineated expository fashion.  As a narrative, it is important that it be understood as a whole unit, and that it is not primarily intended to function like a didactic treatise, nor as a historical or scientific account.  Even if one must faithfully affirm its literal historicity, the functional intent of the story will be lost if focus is not centered on its more-than-historical elements as a myth.  It is also important to note that the passage uses the story of female creation to underscore the primary theme of the oneness or wholeness of creation, rather than to emphasize its division into opposing dualisms.  That the story begins and ends in harmony, with the distinction between man and woman in between, highlights the fact that the distinctions made by God (as opposed to those made by humans later on) result in harmonious balance rather than opposition.

The harmony of these distinctions will become evident in light of the wordplay that is employed throughout by the Hebrew text.

COMMENTARY

Genesis 2:15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.

The Hebrew wordplay begins here with ha ‘adam (the man) and ha adamah (the ground).  Thus, it is implicit in the very word for “the man” that he comes from the earth and embodies a degree of unity with the earth.  Hence, the suggestion to render “the man” as “groundling” so that this frequent wordplay is not lost, and so that the gender ambiguity of ‘adam is preserved.

It is interesting to note that in the Eden that has come to represent utopia and pleasure, the groundling’s destiny is nevertheless to work.

The groundling was created to sustain the life God created (till it), and to guard and protect it (keep it).

Genesis 2:16-17 And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.’

God has placed the groundling in the garden of Eden with absolute freedom.  The admonition of verse 17 does not, as some commentators contend, limit human freedom; if anything it affirms this freedom by offering the means by which humanity can disobey God.

“Knowledge of good and evil” likely refers generally to moral autonomy; it is the ability to decide what is good, and thereby effectively usurp God’s authority when he commands obedience.

The result of this is explicitly stated “you shall die,” so that when the finite groundling adopts the role of the infinite God in attempting to make distinctions, the groundling has violated the purpose of its creation and suffers the consequence.  The meaning of life in this primordial paradise is to work and thereby be obedient to the creator God, not to indulge in pleasure or to be free from all suffering as we might expect.

Genesis 2:18 Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’

“It is not good” here stands in obvious contrast to the pronouncement “it was very good” in chapter 1 after the creation of humankind.

This is the pivotal moment before the consummation of creation held in suspense before being brought to completion.  This dramatic tension serves to heighten the events that follow.  “Alone” here is unlikely to refer to the psychoanalytic feeling of loneliness.  With reference to the groundling’s created purpose in verse 15, it probably alludes to the fact that the sustaining and keeping of the ground is too great a task to take on alone.

The groundling and the ground are in harmony, but the groundling is as yet incomplete.  “Helper as his partner” is one of the most problematic points of translation.  The first word ‘ezer is used elsewhere in the Old Testament to refer to God as a helper, so it cannot be taken in English that the “helper” is subordinate to the one needing help.  “A sustainer beside him” would give a better sense of what is meant here by ‘ezer kenegdo, by emphasizing what kind of help is being offered, and that the two are equal.

Furthermore, the groundling is not as yet differentiated into man and woman, so the ‘ezer kenegdo will refer at the moment to the animals God creates in the following verse.  The narrative plays out the suspense as the search for the co-sustainer for the groundling begins.

Genesis 2:19-20 So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man* there was not found a helper as his partner.

“Out of the ground” is another instance of the wordplay with “groundling.”  Its purpose here is to highlight that the groundling is also in unity with the animals as part of God’s creation from the same ground.  It centers on the groundling’s commonality with the animals rather than its domination of them.  The use of “ground” also recalls the groundling’s purpose as stated in verse 15, so that its status as a creature better equips it to preserve and protect creation.

The naming of the animals reflects the fact that the groundling understood them for what they were, and incorporated them into its life.  The act of naming is possibly the origin of language as a means of facilitating relationships.

The animals are a partial realization of the need for a co-sustainer, but are only able to play a limited role; the groundling is in need of an equal, thus, “there was not found a helper as its partner.”

Genesis 2:21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.

The groundling falls into a “deep sleep,” because the creative act of God is essentially mysterious, and no one is aloud to witness it.

The Hebrew word tzela (rib) can also be translated as “side,” which is by far the more common meaning in the Old Testament.  This is the source of the Rabbinical tradition that God created the human being both male and female, then separated the male and female sides in this verse.

Genesis 2:22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

If the wordplay between ground and groundling implied the unity of humanity with the earth before, then the fact that God formed the woman from the same substance as the man in this verse must imply the unity of male and female.

Since the “out of” of verse 21 corresponds to the “into” of verse 22, it is implied that neither man nor woman is complete without the other.  At this point the word “groundling” can be dropped for “the man” because the man and woman are at last disjoined into separate entities. This point also serves as a foreshadow of the summarizing epilogue statement of verse 24.

Genesis 2:23 Then the man said,‘This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh;this one shall be called Woman,* for out of Man* this one was taken.’

The man’s response to the realization of his ‘ezer kenegdo in the woman is one of relief: “At last!”  Finally in this second creation narrative, we have caught up with the “it was very good” of the first, and thus consummated the “not good” of verse 18.

The idiom “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” though in this case perhaps literally accurate, is a statement not only of kinship but also of loyalty as in a covenant.

It is also interesting that here, where the application of wordplay seems most evident, the attempted play on the words ish (man) and ishshah (woman) has failed.  Etymologically,  ishshah did not derive from ish, and obviously the longer word for woman could not be “taken out of” the shorter word for man.

In fact the use of words for opposites like man and woman cannot arise before the need to distinguish; there can be no woman without man, nor a man without a woman.  Rather than perceive this as the author’s naive error, I suspect the failure of the wordplay in this instance was a deliberate attempt to underscore the theme clearly stated in verse 24.

Genesis 2:24 Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.

The placement of “therefore” in this verse suggests that what follows is an epilogue summarizing the main point of the preceding story.

The fact that “clings” is elsewhere translated as “forsakes” emphasizes the fact that the reciprocal attraction between a man and a woman is so strong a bond that it causes the two to break what is otherwise their closest human connection: the bond to one’s parents.  Thus, what follows is the etiological answer to why this bond is so strong in the first place: “they become one flesh.”  Perhaps the insertion of the word “again” would bring this sense out into focus, to recall that the man and woman once were one flesh, and thus they seek to return to the original state.  This is not to say that they ought to become a singular entity again, as this was already described as “not good,” but instead they may partake in what the man refers to with “At last! bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.”  There is no reason given by the text to assume that this specifically sanctions a particular conception of marriage other than an intimate sexual partnership.  Some have contended that the “one flesh” is realized by their offspring, but this is not supported because the animals also reproduce, yet there is no sense of them becoming “one flesh,” nor is there any reference to the man and woman having any children at this point.

Genesis 2:25 And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.

The final verse affirms that this account ends with the harmony still intact, though the wordplay used here, as well as its immediate connection in the opening of chapter 3, end the chapter with the sense that things are not going to stay this way.  The word arummim (naked) is juxtaposed with arum (wise).  The implication is that the wise mind is uncovered, and open to everything like the eye, unashamed and without the sense that it is at all exposed.

“Not ashamed” here is a pivot in much the same way as “not good” was, that recalls the purity of unity and harmony in Eden, while anticipating that shame is going to come in what follows.  Shame is thus the loss of the inner unity that characterizes Eden by means of an inner contradiction at the core of existence.

With reference to the man and the woman and their nakedness, it is inseparable from sexuality; this moment is the line of tension between the moment of sexual self-realization (verse 23) and the damaging of those connections that results in shame and nakedness (chapter 3).

CONCLUSION

1. SUMMARY

Thus, the etiological narrative of the pericope can be summarized by three main points.  First, God created all life, including humankind, and he separated humankind into male and female so that they could be fulfilled in their created purpose.  Together the man and the woman co-sustain God’s creation.  Second, God endowed humanity with freedom but demands obedience to himself.  Third, God’s creation is intended to live harmoniously in interrelationship.  Humankind is charged with the task of maintaining rather than contravening this perfect order.

1. THEOLOGY

Since God definitively does all of the creating, it is our task to obey him and preserve his creation.  Humanity is conceived in his image, but this is merely a finite rendering of the infinite, and ultimately God is creator whilst humans are creatures.  God is painted as the parent figure par excellence, and thus his demand for obedience should be seen less as a wanton limitation than as a loving provision; as creatures in his likeness, it is in our nature to grapple with matters of eternal significance, but as finite beings it is in our best interest to resign them to him, the infinite creator God.  The result of this difference for us is death (verse 17) and thus we must seek God’s providence of redemption.

1. APPLICATION

We were created to sustain and protect the harmony of the cosmos God created.  We are instructed that if we tamper with this harmony, implicitly trying to be our own god, then we will die.  The ecological implications of this passage are rarely addressed, but perhaps carry one of the most central themes of the text itself.  We tend to forget that we are “groundlings” created to sustain the “ground” and often pretend to have a more other-worldly origin.  The development of our science and technology are in a critical sense our means of eating of the “tree of knowledge,” as we become easily seduced by the notion that we can do it (i.e. invent technology) better than God (who created nature and called it “good”).  Rather than relate to women as our ‘ezer kenegdo we instead record thousands of years of chastising them via patriarchal society.  Thus, this pericope beautifully invites us into a discussion about our own very essence, of what it means to be obedient to God and ultimately to be human.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Atkinson, David. “The Message of Genesis 1-11.” J A. Motyer, 52-80. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1999.

DeClaisse-Walford, Nancy L. Genesis 2: “It is Not Good for the Human to Be Alone.”. Review & Expositor 103, no. 2 (2006): 343-358. http://libproxy.anderson.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rfh&AN=ATLA0001525321&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

De Vries, Roland J. Wonder Between Two: An Irigarayan Reading of Genesis 2:23. Modern Theology 24, no. 1 (2008): 51-74. http://libproxy.anderson.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rfh&AN=ATLA0001635636&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Ezra, Ibn. Genesis (Bereshit). Vol. 1. . In Ibn Ezra’s Commentary on the Pentateuch, New York: Menorah, Inc, 1988.

Guillaume, Philippe. The Demise of Lady Wisdom and of Homo Sapiens: an Unwise Reading of Genesis 2 and 3 in Light of Job and Proverbs. Theological Review 25, no. 2 (2004): 20-38. http://libproxy.anderson.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rfh&AN=ATLA0001456170&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Hamilton, Victor P. Handbook on the Pentateuch. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005.

Klassen, Randy. ‘Ēzer and Exodus. Direction 35, no. 1 (2006): 18-32. http://libproxy.anderson.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rfh&AN=ATLA0001513172&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Kvam, Kristen E., Linda S. Schearing, and Valarie H. Ziegler. Eve & Adam: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Readings on Genesis and Gender. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1999.

Rad, Gerhard von. Genesis: A Commentary. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1972.

Snyder, Johnny Lee.  “The Use of the Hebrew Term ‘adam, as Reflected in Historical and Contemporary Translations of Genesis 1-2.” masters thesis, Anderson School of Theology, 1991.

Walker-Jones, Arthur W. Eden for Cyborgs: Egocentricism and Genesis 2-3. Biblical Interpretation 16, no. 3 (2008): 263-293. http://libproxy.anderson.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rfh&AN=ATLA0001666403&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

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