People use Sunday’s first reading, Genesis 2.18-24, which Jesus quotes in the gospel, to argue for men’s right to dominate women. People say, “Didn’t God make a woman to be the helpmate for the man? Wasn’t Eve created second and from Adam’s rib?” Or, was the best created last?
About helpmate. The New American Bible, which Catholics read at Sunday liturgy, has God say, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him.” Suitable partner translates the two Hebrew words in the story better than helpmate. Literally, the two words mean one who corresponds in face-to-face likeness.
About the rib. To be made from the bone of another is to be made of the essence of the other.
About who was made first and second. The word adam is not a man’s name in the Genesis story. The word adam means human. The Hebrew word adamah means earth. In telling how God made the adam from the adamah, the creation story explains humans are from and of the earth. The adam is an earthling who is neither male or female at first (Genesis 2.7). Not until the lines of poetry near the end does the story use the Hebrew words ‘is and ‘issah, expressing male and female sexual difference. In the story, common humanity precedes sexual differentiation.
Read the following version of the creation story with the word adam translated human rather than man.
God makes two out of one.
Creator God said: “It is not good for human to be alone. I will make a partner for human.” So Creator God formed wild animals and birds of the air out of the earth, and brought them to human to see what human would call them; whatever human called each would be its name. Human gave names to all the cattle, all the birds of the air, and all the wild animals; but none proved to be the suitable partner for human.
So Creator God cast a deep sleep on human, and while human was asleep, took out a rib and closed up its place with flesh. Creator God built up the rib taken from human into a woman. When the Creator God brought the woman, human said: “This one, at last, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. This one shall be called female, for from the male this one has been taken.” That is why a husband leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one body.
Genesis 2.18-24
- What use have you heard people make of the creation story to argue men are superior to women?
- How does reading male and female only at the end of the story affect how you interpret the story?