What was Eve's role in relation to Adam?

Question

The role of Eve in relation to Adam is dramatically changed by the interpretation of the sections I have bolded below, from Genesis 2:18:

The verse as most people learned it:

And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. (Gen 2:18 KJV)

The new interpretation:

Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’ (Gen 2:18 NRSV)

Both suggest that Eve was created a) because God did not want Adam to be alone and b) to help Adam.

However, the NRSV describes this as a "partnership" -- but does that merely reflect modern sensibilities about how marriage should work, or is there anything in the text to suggest what we might call "equality" between Adam and Eve?

Answer 1

The Hebrew words in question are עזר כנגדו (ezer kenegdo).

The Hebrew root עזר means “help” and the word kenegdo comes from the root word נגד (neged). Neged in the OT always means "opposite" or "across from" and negdo means across from him. In Exodus 19:2, Israel encamp neged hahar, opposite to Mount Sinai.

The form kenegedo doesn't appear anywhere else in the Old Testament but is often used by the Sages of the Talmud to mean “corresponding to.” In his "The Art of Biblical Narrative," Robert Alter offers the translation “a sustainer beside him” and the more literal translation: "an aid opposite him."

Here is some of Alter's discussion of this passage:

"It is not good for man to be alone. I shall make him a sustainer beside him (2:18)." [Following this verse] there occurs a peculiar interruption. We have been conditioned by the previous version of cosmogony to expect an immediate act of creation to flow from the divine utterance that is introduced by the formula, "And God said." Here, however, we must wait two verses for the promised creation of a helpmate while we follow the process of the first human's giving names to all living creatures. These verses (Gen. 2:19-20) are marked, as a formal seal of their integration in the story, by an envelope structure, being immediately preceded by the thematically crucial phrase 'ezer kenegdo (literally, "an aid opposite him"), and concluding with the same phrase...

Eve has been promised. She is then withheld for two carefully framed verses while God allows the human creature to perform his unique function of bestower of names on things. There is an implicit irony in this order of narrated events. Man is superior to all other living creatures because only he can invent language, only he has the level of consciousness that makes him capable of linguistic ordering. But this very consciousness makes him aware of his solitude in contrast to the rest of the zoological kingdom...

His whole exposition is extremely beautiful and enlightening and I highly recommend reading it. Available on google books here.

Answer 2

As for why the KJV used the term "meet", the Old English adjective form means "proper", "suitable" or "precisely adapted to". See the definitions on Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster.com and TheFreeDictionary.com. I think that in some cases people have reacted to this rather strongly (and unnecessarily) because of the passing resemblance to "meat" - See, God says that men should treat women like a chunk of flesh, not an equal! - when in reality that wasn't the message at all.

Answer 3

To add to Ami's answer...

Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

No other creature was created in God's image - in the context of the creation account here in Genesis 1, we can infer the nature of mankind is more like God than any other created thing.

It follows that, relative to all other created beings, Adam and Eve were equals.

In light of the fact that God made male and female in his image, I believe adding the "I will make him a helper as his partner" is not out of line (nor out of context).

That being said, I think Ami's break down of "kenegdo" is sufficient to show that the scripture does reveal that Adam and Eve are equals in the eyes of God.

Answer 4

Question Restatement :

What was Eve's role in relation to Adam?

Note: I added another related question, to examine the word "before", Genesis 2:18 - How to interpret “before”, in “helper before him”?. That other question can falsify or validate this answer.

This interpretation is dependent on how one chooses to understand "Before", either as:

1. "Helper who goes before as a champion / advocate"; or
2. "Helper who submits before".

---

Answer :

Because of the context and the ways "נגד | neged" is used in Hebrew, I think "champion" is merited : either to hold Adam accountable, or to champion for him, probably both.

Joshua 5:13

HEB: אִישׁ֙ עֹמֵ֣ד לְנֶגְדּ֔וֹ וְחַרְבּ֥וֹ שְׁלוּפָ֖ה

NASB, Joshua 5:13-14 - Now it came about when Joshua was by Jericho, that ... a man was standing opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand, and Joshua ... said to him, “Are you for us or for our adversaries?” 14 He said, “No; rather I indeed come now as captain of the host of the Lord.”

Given the context - that Adam was to die that very day - Eve's role seems to stand out: 1.) She previously challenged the reasoning of the Serpent, on Adam's behalf; 2.) And, she provided Adam a valid defense, by pointing to their own vulnerability, and the Serpent that had deceived them.

Either way, Adam's life appears to have been spared - because of what Eve had done.

This interpretation also makes sense, in a the Systematic Theology view : that all of Scripture is about how advocating for others, unconditionally, in love, supersedes any judgments under law.

Challenging someone is a necessary part of advocacy; and, advocacy doesn't mean approval.

There are very few, if any, narratives in Scripture that don't convey this theme.

Conclusion: I think valid arguments could be made that Eve was to be a submissive helper for Adam, but "valid" doesn't mean right. At some point, it comes down to "Reader's Choice" - and in this case, I feel that a "noble interpretation" of Eve as an Advocate and Champion - is the correct interpretation.

Answer 5

From the beginning God set up two options, but that agency to choose is the very basis of our experience on this earth. By choosing to eat from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we benefits from Eve's wisdom that to be like God we would have to experience opposition. There was a Plan of Salvation and when we have overcome as many temptations as possible, then Christs sacrifice will make it possible to return to be in the presence of God

Answer 6

I believe Adam and Eve were a "picture" or "type" of a man himself. Together they were one unit, but each represented separate parts of man. Adam is man's Spirit which is considered the more dominant or male part who communes or talks directly with God. Eve is man's soul, the more feminine, submissive part and the Spirit's "helper". Notice she does not receive direct commands from God and must hear them from Adam (the Spirit)? It is only through the spirit that our soul can hear from God. Also, she was created differently. She was created OUT of Adam's flesh and it never says that she had the "breath of life" breathed into her. She was created out of Adam's "flesh" which is how our soul first appeared - when God breathed our spirit into our body. In other words, she didn't have God's Spirit directly, but was dependent on Adam or the Spirit of man for life and access to God. This is how our human soul works too. It is dependent on our Spirit for life and hears from God through our Spirit. Our human soul is our spirit's "helper" so it can interact with this environment. They appeared separately in Genesis, but they were intended to be one human or one mankind, one Adam.