Why God Created Eve

Whoever penned Torah’s creation account – aka the Old Testament’s “Genesis” – had something specific to say about what God values most.

And none of it happens without Eve.

Actually, her name is “Ishah,” and she wasn’t created to be Adam’s girlfriend, or to fulfill his sexual desires, or cook, clean, keep the house and raise kids, much as we the men have so interpreted.

Instead, it turns out that her purpose was/is just as high as Adam’s, but because we’ve been so historically hard up to declare Eve a housekeeper, we miss the author’s fundamental point.

To bettter understand, we have to start at the beginning, when God creates heaven, earth, etc., then steps back – every time – and comments on the quality of the thing he’s just created, much like an artist on that rare occasion when he’s happy with his work.

The account goes like this:

• • • God creates water, sky, and dry land, and says, “That’s good.”
    • Then, plants, seeds, vegetation, etc., declaring again, “That’s good.”
    • Then stars, sun, moon… “That’s good.”
    • Then fish, birds, and animals, uttering his last “That’s good.”

Finally, God creates Adam, and steps back to critique what is arguably his most complex, amazing creation, the one thing that most resembles Him.

At this point we’re expecting another “That’s good,” but we get the opposite, a blatantly out-of-place “Not good.”

???

I’ll stop here and point out the purpose of repetition in Old Testament narrative. It’s a common style of writing that some scholars call the “hallmark of Hebrew rhetoric;” something we’re supposed to stop and take notice of.

The narratives of the Old Testament are brilliant, literary works with mind-blowing depth. You just have to learn the literary style of these writers. One of the easiest styles to start with is the repetition of keywords and themes… Once you start to spot these, you know you’re on the trail of the biblical author’s main point.

In simple terms, when an Old Testament author repeats something over and over again, that repetition is core to whatever point he/she is trying to make, and fundamental to how the story is supposed to impact our lives.

So, how is “That’s good…. That’s good…. That’s good… That’s NOT good” fundamental to the story?

What’s “not good” about Adam is that he’s by himself. Historically, we’ve deduced that, because God sends him a naked woman with complimentary plumbing, and because our theology is so often overthrown by sex and procreation, Eve’s function must surely revolove around those two things. The passage does say, after all, “it is not good for Adam to be alone,” and “I will send him a qualified helper.”

Today – even today – there are some who use this passage as a license to subserviate women under the rule of their husbands, seeing them as secondary to men. That’s a “not good” interpretation of Genesis, one that has contributed to centuries of abuse.

It’s better to translate this passage as, “It is not good for Adam to be the only human in the cosmos,” i.e., “I don’t want only one human, I want the planet crawling with humans,” complicated as that’s turned out to be.

But instead of speaking more humans into existence, as God did with every other element of his creation, he takes a part of Adam and transforms it into Eve, who is something like Adam, but wholly different.

Moving forward, Adam and Eve will partner with God in the miracle of populating the earth. Eve’s purpose here is no more people-making than Adam’s, although she’ll play a more engaged, miraculous, powerful, creative role.

This is one element of the Genesis arrangement that I can’t emphasize enough. Until the creation of Eve, God creates by himself, speaking everything into existence, including Adam – Eve is the first thing that requires a part/piece of the previously created thing. After this, there is nothing that God creates by himself. From this point onward, anything that comes into existence comes via partnership between God and humanity.

At Eve, God would no longer work alone.

God certainly could’ve done things differently, and maybe there are still planets and galaxies that are coming into existence, but when it comes to things on our home planet, He works with us, we work with him.

Nations, cultures, political systems, buildings, etc. Nothing happens without this partnership. When the pre-Isrealites were called to build their new nation, they had as much a hand in the process as God did. He could’ve simply spoke it into existence, but that’s not the arrangement. When Israel was razed to the ground, other nations were called to do the dirty work, and to house God’s people in exile until it would be time to try again.

The very salvation of God came through a similar partnership, as did it’s proposed declaration to the world. God could’ve wiped out the sins of humanity any way he wanted, then told everyone about it through miraculous means. Instead, he conscripted a virgin, prophets, disciples, heralds, thieves, traitors, prostitutes, et-al.

And none of it happens without Eve.

Eve was not created to compliment Adam, she was and is a fundamental element in the creation story, the only answer to Adam’s “not good” problem, and the next fundamental step in God partnering with humanity to bring the currency of heaven down to earth.

Theologically speaking, she carries all the power/miracle/mystery of universe, cosmos, eternity, Adam, and anything else that God has brought into existence.

But the author’s purpose is not to celebrate Eve, or Adam, or even God. The point is that people are the pinnacle of God’s creation. That’s why he employs the “good/not good” pattern, why he goes out of his way to mark people as the only created thing that bears the image of God, and why he orders his content to emphasize the idea that people are so important that they are deemed worthy to partner with God.

As such, any Bible-based religion that has at its core, instead, right thinking, or behavior, or allegiance to whatever cultural expression misses something much bigger.