Men and Women

God took the form of a potter, and He created a human form out of mud. Then He breathed the breath of life into the nostrils of the form, and made it the first human being. In the Hebrew language in which the story was originally told, it was said that Adam (human being) was made out of Adamah (earth). Thus human existence was viewed as God’s life expressed through earth. The human being was believed to be closely related to God as well as to the earth.

Then God created a garden at a place called Eden, and placed the human being there. A river originated from there flew in four branches. It was a beautiful garden full of various fruit trees. The human being was given the responsibility to work there and to take are of it.  

As time passed, God noticed that the human being was not happy because of his loneliness.  As a solution to this problem, God created various animals and birds out of the earth, and brought them before the human being. The human being named all of them, but couldn’t find a partner from among them.

So God thought of another alternative. The human being was given an anesthesia, and while unconscious, God surgically separated the human being into two beings. When they woke up, they found themselves mostly similar in form but slightly different, and called themselves ish (man) and ishah (woman) in Hebrew language. They found themselves strongly attracted to each other to become united again as they originally were. Man had a thirst for woman’s affection, and woman had a thirst for man’s affection. This gave rise to the saying that man and woman would become one body.

According to this story, the original human being must have had a complete reproductive system, but when that being was divided into two, one part of the reproductive system was placed in woman, and the other part in man. Thus they could reproduce only by their cooperation and interdependence.

The original human being had to do everything without any help from anyone else. It was a life of boredom. There was no one to talk to.  Separation into man and woman brought about a radical change in the way of life. They began to share their activities and they became specialized in their skills. While the woman specialized in domestic activities such as rearing children, the man specialized in  non-domestic activities such as farming.  That was beginning of community life.  

While reading this story, a few of us might ask this question whether the first human being was a man or a woman. Those who favor patriarchy might argue for man, and those who argue in favor of matriarchy might argue for woman. It is common knowledge that the reproductive system exists in man and woman, and reproduction cannot take place without their cooperation. So the first human being in the story must have had a complete reproductive system. That being must have been a combination of man and woman.

However the story is originally presented as if the first human being was a man. It happened so probably because this story originated in a patriarchal culture. Even God is presented as a man in the original story. It is reasonable to assume that God is neither a man nor a woman, for God, being immortal, does not need to reproduce.

In the original story, the woman was created out of man’s rib. Why from rib? If so, why hasn’t man one rib less? A satisfactory explanation can be found when we realize that this story originated in the ancient Sumerian culture in which the word “Ti” meant both rib and life. The original storyteller probably wanted to say that the woman was created out of the life of man. The name of the woman, Eve, also means life. 

Back to Contents