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EVE
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EVE , the See also:English transcription, through See also:Lat. Eva and Gr. Eta, of the See also:Hebrew name 'I IJavvah, given by See also:Adam to his wife because she was " See also:mother of all living," or perhaps more strictly, " of every See also:group of those connected by See also:female kinship " (see W. R. See also: See also:Cheyne, too, assumes a See also:common origin for IJavvah and the IJivvites.] [The See also:account of the origin of Eve (Gen. iii. 21-23) runs thus: " And Yahweh-Elohim caused a deep See also:sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept. And he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its See also:stead, and the See also:rib which Yahweh-Elohim had taken from the man he built up into a woman, and he brought her to the man." Enchanted at the sight, the man now burst out into elevated, rhythmic speech: " This one," he said, " at length is See also:bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh," &c.; to which the narrator adds the comment, " Therefore doth a man forsake his See also:father and his mother, and cleave to his wife, and they become one flesh (See also:body)." Whether this comment implies the existence of the See also:custom of beena, See also:marriage (W.R.Smith, Kinship, 2nd ed., p. 208), seems doubtful. It is at least equally possible that the expression " his wife " simply reflects the fact that among See also:ordinary Israelites circumstances had quite naturally brought about the prevalence of monogamy.' What the narrator gives is not a See also:doctrine of marriage, much less a See also:precept, but an explanation of a See also:simple and natural phenomenon. How is it, he asks, that a man is so irresistibly See also:drawn towards a woman? And he answers: Because the first woman was built up out of a rib of the first man. At the same See also:time it is See also:plain that the already existing tendency towards monogamy mtist have been powerfully assisted by this presentation of Eve's story as well as by the prophetic descriptions of Yahweh's relation to See also:Israel under the figure of a monogamous See also:union.] [The narrator is no rhetorician, and spares us a description of the ideal woman. But we know that, for Adam, his strangely New produced wife was a " help (or helper) matching or Testament corresponding to him "; or, as the Authorized Version 7Ppiica" puts it, " a help meet for him " (ii. 18b). This does not, of course, exclude subordination on the See also:part of the See also:roman; what is excluded is that exaggeration of natural subordination which the narrator may have found both in his ' That See also:polygamy had not become morally objectionable is shown by the stories of See also:Lamech, See also:Abraham and See also:Jacob.own and in the neighbouring countries, and which he may have regarded as (together with the pains of parturition) the See also:punishment of the woman's transgression (Gen. iii. 16). His own ideal of woman seems to have made its way in See also:Palestine by slow degrees. An apocryphal See also:book (See also:Tobit viii. 6, 7) seems to contain the only reference to the See also:section till we come to the time of See also:Christ, to whom the comment in Gen. ii. 24 supplies the See also:text for an authoritative See also:prohibition of See also:divorce, which presupposes and sanctifies monogamy (Matt. x. 7, 8; Matt. xix. 5): For other New Testament applications of the story of Eve seer See also:Cor. xi. 8, g (especially); 2 Cor. Xi. 3; I Tim. ii. 13, 14; and in See also:general cf. ADAM, and Ency. Biblica, " Adam and Eve."] [The seeming omissions in the Biblical narrative have been filled up by imaginative Jewish writers.] The earliest source which remains to us is the Book of See also:Jubilees, or Lepto- fmaginagenesis, a Palestinian See also:work (referred. by R. H. See also: What, for in- Jewish and stance, was to be made of such a story as that in Gen. Christian ii: iv.? To " minds trained under the influence of the tali :re" Jewish See also:Haggada, in which the whole Biblical See also:history is freely intermixed with legendary and parabolic See also:matter," the question as to the literal truth of that story could hardly be formulated. It is otherwise when the Greek See also:leaven begins to work.] See also:Josephus, in the See also:prologue to his See also:Archaeology, reserves the problem of the true meaning of the See also:Mosaic narrative, but does not regard everything as strictly literal. Philo, the See also:great representative of Alexandrian See also:allegory, expressly argues that in the nature of things the trees of life and knowledge cannot be taken otherwise than symbolically. His See also:interpretation of the creation of Eve is, as has been already observed, plainly suggested by a Platonic myth. The longing for See also:reunion which love implants in the divided halves of the See also:original dual man is the source of sensual See also:pleasure (symbolized by the serpent), which in turn is the beginning of all transgression. Eve represents the sensuous or perceptive part of man's nature, Adam the See also:reason. The serpent, therefore, does not venture to attack Adam directly. 0 See See also:West's authoritative See also:translation in See also:Pahlavi Texts (Sacred Books of the See also:East). 3 " See also:Die bib'. Schopfungsberichte" (ArchivfurReligionswissensch+zft, ix. 171 ff.).
Spiegel, Erdnische Alterthumskunde, i. 511_
5 See also:Muir, Sattscrit Texts, vol. i. p. 25; cf. Spiegel, vol. i. p. 458.
Creation of Eve.
It is sense which yields to pleasure, and in turn enslaves the reason and destroys its immortal virtue. This exposition, in which the elements of the See also:Bible narrative become See also:mere symbols of the abstract notions of Greek See also:philosophy, and are adapted to Greek conceptions of the origin of evil in the material and sensuous part of man, was adopted into Christian See also:theology by See also:Clement and See also:Origen, notwithstanding its obvious inconsistency with the Pauline See also:anthropology, and the difficulty which its supporters See also:felt in reconciling it with the Christian doctrine of the excellence of the married See also:state (Clemens Alex. Stromata, p. 174). These difficulties had more See also:weight with the Western See also: Civ. Dei, xiii. 21).1
The history of Adam and Eve became the basis of anthropological discussions which acquired more than speculative importance from their connexion with the doctrine of original See also:sin and the meaning of the See also:sacrament of See also:baptism. One or two points in Augustinian teaching may be here mentioned as having to do particularly with Eve. The question whether the soul of Eve was derived from Adam or directly infused by the Creator is raised as an See also:element in the great problem of traducianism and creationism (De Gen. ad lit. lib. x.). And it is from Augustine that See also:Milton derives the idea that Adam sinned, not from See also:desire for the forbidden See also:fruit, but because love forbade him to dissociate his See also:fate from Eve's (ibid. lib. xi. sub fin.). See also:Medieval discussion moved mainly in the lines laid down by Augustine. A sufficient See also:sample of the way in which the subject was treated by the school-men may be found in the Summa of See also: But interpretations pass under this now popular See also:title which have no real claim to be so designated. What is common to the " mythical " interpretations is to find the real value of the narrative, not in the form of the story, but in the thoughts which it embodies. But the story cannot be called a myth in the strict sense of the word, unless we are prepared to See also:place it on one See also:line with the myths of heathenism, produced by the unconscious See also:play of plastic See also:fancy, giving shape to the impressions of natural phenomena on See also:primitive observers. Such a theory does no See also:justice to a narrative which embodies profound truths See also:peculiar to the See also:religion of See also:revelation. Other forms of the so-called mythical interpretation are little more than abstract allegory in a new See also:guise, ignoring the fact that the biblical story does not See also:teach general truths which repeat themselves in every individual, but gives a view of the purpose of man's creation, and of the origin of sin, in connexion with the divine See also:plan of redemption. Among his other services in refutation of the unhistorical See also:rationalism of last century, See also:Kant has the merit of having forcibly recalled See also:attention to the fact that the narrative of Genesis, even if we do not take it literally, must be regarded as 1 Thus in medieval theology Eve is a type of the church, and her formation from the rib has a mystic reason, inasmuch as See also:blood and See also:water (the sacraments of the church) flowed from the side of Christ on the See also:cross (Thomas, Summa, See also:par. i. qu. xcii.),presenting a view of the beginnings of the history of the human See also:race (Muthmasslicher Anfang der Menschengeschichte, 1786) Those who recognize this fact ought not to See also:call themselves or be called by others adherents of the mythical theory, although they also recognize that in the nature of things the divine truths brought out in the history of the creation and fall could not have been expressed either in the form of literal history or in the shape of abstract metaphysical doctrine; or even although they may hold—as is done by many who accept the narrative as a part of supernatural revelation—that the specific biblical truths which the narrative conveys are presented through the vehicle of a story which, at least in some of its parts, may possibly be shaped by the influence of legends common to the See also:Hebrews with their See also:heathen neighbours. (W. R. S.; [T. K. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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