Significant Women
By Pastor Richard Foster
Eve
All about Eve
Genesis 3:20
The name of Eve is inseparable from Adam and the creation story in Genesis. We know her as the first woman, she was also the first mother and wife and even dress maker but was never a daughter or sister. We don’t know old or where she was when she died though Jewish Legend is that she was buried in cave of Machpelah later secured by Abraham as a family burial place. W know from Genesis that she bore three sons that are named but other sons and daughters were born to Adam and presumably Eve (Genesis 5:4). Eve wasn’t the only name given to this first woman and there are two different accounts of her creation, just to confuse things. Despite all this she is undoubtedly the most significant woman who has ever lived.
The first account of Eve’s (as we will call her) creation is in Genesis 1:26,27. In this description we are told that God created man in his image, both male and female were created and they shared the title of the name ‘man’. This name in the original language is Adam and male and female were not distinguished from one another and shared the name. They were both created in his image and shared equal responsibility in caring for and managing God’s creation.
There is a Jewish legend drawn from the Babylonian Torah and is called the Alphabet of ben sirah that argues that Eve was the second woman to be created. Briefly it states that God first created a female known as Lilith who was entirely equal to Adam but felt she was treated as inferior. She rebelled and left Eden and while she was away God created a second woman to support Adam. This woman became Eve. There is not enough space to deal with this in more detail here but we will return to it in a future reading. For now we will treat it as a myth designed to explain why there seems to be two creation accounts and move on to Eve’s significance.
Genesis 2 provides the second account of Eve’s creation and at this time God instructed Adam to call her woman (Genesis 2:23) because she was taken out of man. In the story of creation we read that in every stage after God had had acted he declared that what he had made was good and after he created man, all of creation was very good (Chapter 1:31). However by the time we move to Chapter 2:18 God says that it was not good for man to live alone and so he decides to create woman. Most scholars belief this is a description of what happened in the account of man and woman being created in Genesis 1 and not something that occurred later.
God gives his explanation for the creation of woman. It was to provide companionship to Adam (it was not good for him to be alone) and to work with him in caring for creation. The word ‘helper’ is used in Genesis 2:18 to describe the woman’s role, many have understood this to mean that she had a lesser role, she was subordinate to Adam who was the boss, and she just did as he directed. The word in its original language is pronounced ezer and is used of God in Psalm 70:5: ‘But I am poor and needy; hasten to me, O God! You are my help (ezer)and my deliverer; Lord, do not delay!’ So it is clearly not intended to mean that woman was inferior to man. It can also be translated as ‘complement’ not to suggest that man was somehow deficient, after all he was created in the image of God, but that together they would reflect God’s image in the manner in which the cared for his creation.
We have yet to get the passage where woman is named Eve and that occurs after the tragic events in the garden which we look at next time. What is important though is to note that woman was created in the image of God in every respect equal to man. God intended that man live in relationship with others and together with woman he and she are expected to care for God’s creation and show every aspect of his nature.
In what way do men and women reflect the character of God together?
God said it was not good for man to live alone, why not?
3.Do you think that women are created as a little less important than men?