This 11th-century mosaic, which shows the scene of Jesus’ crucifixion, comes from the Church of the Dormition in Daphne, Greece. Early Christians found parallels between the Adam and Eve story and Jesus and the Church. In the mosaic, blood and water flow from Jesus’ pierced side in the direction of his mother, Mary. Early Christians believed that just as Eve was birthed from the side of Adam, so the Church was birthed from the side of Jesus.

The creation of woman in the Bible has been the topic of much debate in Biblical Archaeology Review. In “Was Eve Made from Adam’s Rib—or His Baculum?” from the September/October 2015 issue, Ziony Zevit makes a shocking claim about the Adam and Eve story in the Bible.

The Biblical text says that Eve was created from Adam’s tsela‘. Although tsela‘ has traditionally been translated as “rib,” Zevit argues that it is better translated as Adam’s os baculum. This controversial conversation continues in Mary Joan Winn Leith’s article “Creating Woman,” published in the March/April 2016 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

In her article, Leith examines the creation of woman in the Bible. She looks at the etiological and euphemistic support for Zevit’s interpretation, and she considers how this would have fit into ancient views of biology. Then Leith focuses on an interesting part of the Adam and Eve story in the Bible: the “punishment poem” in Genesis 3:14–19.

This poem occurs after Adam and Eve have eaten the forbidden fruit. Because of their disobedience, God curses them. As Leith explains, this curse takes positive relationships, including childbirth, and turns them negative:

[T]he “punishment poem” in Genesis 3:14–19 reverses to negative effect all the positive relationships that prevailed before the humans disobeyed God. Humans and God, man and woman, humans and animals, humans and the earth now become alienated from each other where before all was harmonious. The most famous negative effect of the human disobedience is the woman’s pain in childbirth. At least theoretically then, before the punishment, childbirth in Eden should have been painless. If the father-as-child-bearer principle is hovering in the background of the creation of the woman, then the difficult childbirth promised to the woman in Genesis 3:16 reverses the painless “birth” in Genesis 2, where not only does a man—rather than a woman—give birth, but thanks to the anaesthetic “deep sleep” (tardemah), the man suffers no pain.

Thus, the creation of woman in the Bible from man—the first birth, according to Leith—is painless, but, as the “punishment poem” illustrates, all subsequent births are painful. Further, not only was the first birth painless, but it was a man—not a woman—who shockingly gives birth, setting it apart from all others.

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Leith then examines Christian symbolism related to the Adam and Eve story in the Bible. Early Christians believed that Eve was created from Adam’s rib or side, and they found parallels between Adam’s side and Jesus’ side that was pierced during his crucifixion. John 19:34 records, “Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his (Jesus’) side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out.” Early Christians believed that the blood represented the holy Eucharist, and the water represented baptism—two sacraments given by Jesus to the Church. Therefore, the Church was birthed from the side of Jesus, just as Eve was birthed from Adam’s side.

This interpretation is illustrated well in an 11th-century mosaic from the Church of the Dormition in Daphne, Greece. In this mosaic, blood and water flow from the pierced side of Jesus in the direction of his mother, Mary. Leith explains that Mary is often referred to as the “new Eve” and “considered to personify the Church.” The birth of the Church is visually depicted by the blood and water (sacraments) flowing toward Mary (the Church). Adam also makes an appearance in this scene. Jesus’ blood drips onto Adam’s skull at the foot of the cross. This symbolizes 1 Corinthians 15:21–22: “For since death came through a human being (Adam), the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being (Christ); for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.”

To learn more about the creation of woman in the Bible, read the full article by Mary Joan Winn Leith—“Creating Woman”—in the March/April 2016 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Subscribers: Read the full article “Creating Woman” by Mary Joan Winn Leith in the March/April 2016 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

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This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on March 14, 2016.

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Related reading in Bible History Daily

The Adam and Eve Story: Eve Came From Where?

Lilith in the Bible and Mythology

What Does the Bible Say About Infertility?

All Access members, read more in the BAS Library

Was Eve Made from Adam’s Rib—or His Baculum?

Creating Woman

Did Eve Fall or Was She Pushed?

Eve and Adam

How Did Adam & Eve Make a Living?

The post The Creation of Woman in the Bible appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Rembrandt, Moses with the Tablets of the Law, public domain.
Moses, pictured here in a painting by 17th-century Baroque artist Guido Reni, is one of the most iconic figures in the Hebrew Bible. Despite Moses’ obvious Semitic heritage, the name “Moses” is actually Egyptian, like that of other Biblical figures (Phinehas, Hophni, Hur, Merari). All of them are referred to in the Bible’s Levite sources (E, P and D of the Documentary Hypothesis). Levites like Moses fled Egypt to form a new nation of Israelites who were to “love your neighbor.”

It’s one of the most famous lines in the Bible: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18).

Impressive. Fascinating. Inspiring. Capable of a thousand interpretations and raising 10,000 questions. A remarkable proposition coming out of ancient Judah, which was embedded in the Near Eastern world of wars, slavery, class and ethnic divisions and discriminations of all kinds.

One interpretation of this verse that has been making the rounds for years turns this grand idea on its head: The claim is that the verse means to love only one’s fellow Israelites as oneself. Instead of being inclusive, it’s actually exclusive. Is there anything to this claim?

We have to start by going all the way back to the Exodus, which the combination of archaeology and text has led me to argue was historical; it actually happened. Ninety percent of the arguments against its historicity are not about the event itself but about the size of the event: All of Israel! Two million people (as suggested by Exodus 12:37–38)! Impossible!

But the evidence of a real but smaller exodus is a different matter. The earliest Biblical sources—the very early Song of Miriam (Exodus 15) and the text known in critical Biblical scholarship as J—don’t mention any numbers.

Moreover, there is good evidence that only the Levites were in Egypt; it was they who left and then merged with the rest of Israel. Note that only Levites have numerous Egyptian names (e.g., Phinehas, Hophni, Hur, Merari, Moses). The Levites alone reflect Egyptian material culture: Their Tabernacle has parallels with the battle tent of Pharaoh Rameses II.¹ Their ark has parallels with Egyptian sacred barks.² The Levite sources alone require circumcision, which was practiced in Egypt. There is much more. For the whole picture, see my presentation at a recent conference titled Out of Egypt held last year at the University of California, San Diego, which BAR has put online at https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/exodus/video-the-exodus-based-on-the-sources-themselves/.

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One more mark of the Levite sources is crucial and will bring us back now to the interpretation of “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Is neighbor exclusive or inclusive?

Of the four sources of the Torah or Pentateuch that critical scholars refer to as J, E, P and D,^a three—E, P (the Priestly source) and D (the Deuteronomistic source)—are Levite sources. In these Levite sources, the command to treat aliens fairly comes up 52 times! (How many times does this come up in the non-Levite source, J? Answer: None.)

The first occurrence of the word torah in the Torah is: “There shall be one torah for the citizen and for the alien who resides among you” (Exodus 12:49, from the Levite source P).

Why this frequent concern for aliens? We might reasonably guess that it was a matter of geography. Israel lay at the point where Africa, Asia and Europe meet. People of all backgrounds regularly passed through. So we can imagine a nation at that fulcrum of ancient trade routes having a policy of welcome to all those valuable aliens. Still, not all countries that have desired the benefits of trade have emphasized this principle. Again and again, all three Levite sources of the text (E, P and D) rather give this reason:

And you shall not persecute an alien, and you shall not oppress him, because you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

Exodus 22:20

And you shall not oppress an alien — since you know the alien’s soul, because you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

Exodus 23:9

You shall not persecute him. The alien who resides with you shall be to you like a citizen of yours, and you shall love him as yourself, because you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

Leviticus 19:33–34

So you shall love the alien, because you were aliens in the land of Egypt.

Deuteronomy 10:19

You shall not abhor an Egyptian, because you were an alien in his land.

Deuteronomy 23:8

You shall not bend judgment of an alien … You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and YHWH, your God, redeemed you from there. On account of this I command you to do this thing.

Deuteronomy 24:17–18

Why should we be good to aliens? Because we know how it feels. We know the alien’s soul. So we won’t persecute foreigners; we won’t abhor them; we won’t oppress them; we won’t judge them unfairly; we’ll treat them the same as we treat ourselves; we’ll love them.

Indeed, one possible meaning of the word Levi in Hebrew is “alien.”³

It is certainly true that there are also some harsh passages toward foreigners in the Bible: Dispossess the Canaanites, destroy Jericho, etc. But the evidence in the ground, discussed and debated many times in BAR’s pages, indicates that most of that (the so-called Conquest of the land) never happened.^b Moreover in far more laws and instances, the principle of treatment of aliens is positive.

For example: Don’t rape a captured woman in war (Deuteronomy 21:10ff).

Don’t abhor an Edomite (Deuteronomy 23:8).

If you happen upon your enemy’s ox or donkey straying, bring it back to him.

If you see the donkey of someone who hates you sagging under its burden, and you would hold back from helping him: You shall help him (Exodus 23:4–5).

The Bible permits a violent response to those who threaten Israel’s existence, but it still forbids a massacre if they surrender.

The very fact that the Bible’s sources start off with the creation of the earth and all of humankind instead of starting with Israel itself is relevant here. If any of us were asked to write a history of the United States, would we start by saying, “Well, first there was the Big Bang, and then …”? The Biblical authors saw Israel’s destiny as being to bring good to all those foreign nations and peoples—to the earth. It is not a minor point. It appears in God’s first words to Abraham, in God’s first words to Isaac, and in God’s first words to Jacob: Your descendants’ purpose is to be that “all the nations/families of the earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:3; 26:2–4; 28:10–14).

Which brings me back to the opening question: Is “Love your neighbor as yourself” meant exclusively or inclusively? Does this admonition refer only to your Israelite neighbor or to all humankind?

When the text already directs every Israelite to love aliens as oneself, what would be the point of saying to love only Israelites—in the very same chapter! Now my friend Jack Milgrom, of blessed memory, wrote that it is precisely because the love of the alien is specifically mentioned there that love of “neighbor” must mean only a fellow Israelite.⁴

I see his point, but his position would have been more likely if the verse about love of aliens had come first in the text and the love of neighbor had came later. But the instruction to love aliens comes after we’ve already had the instruction to love your neighbor as oneself. That is, if you tell people first to love their aliens and then give a second instruction to love their neighbors, that second instruction really does sound like an addition because the first group, aliens, obviously doesn’t include the second group, neighbors. But if you tell people first to love their neighbors, then a second instruction to love aliens a few verses later can make sense as a specification for anyone who would have thought that love of neighbor didn’t include loving others as well.

Watch full-length lectures from the Out of Egypt: Israel’s Exodus Between Text and Memory, History and Imagination conference, which addressed some of the most challenging issues in Exodus scholarship. The international conference was hosted by Calit2’s Qualcomm Institute at UC San Diego in San Diego, CA.

Did the Biblical authors think that the specifications referring to aliens were necessary? We know that they did because they said it 52 times in the Torah! And, in any case, Milgrom and I would both recognize that the bottom line is that one is supposed to love both, alien and neighbor, whether they overlap or not.

So from where did the idea come, that the Hebrew word for neighbor in this verse, re‘a, means only a member of one’s own group? We can get a better idea of what the Hebrew word for neighbor, re‘a, means by looking at other places in the Bible where this word is used.

The first occurrence of re‘a is in the story of the tower of Babel (Babylon). It is the Bible’s story of the origin of different nations and languages. It involves every person on earth: “And they said each to his re‘a …” (Genesis 11:3). That is, the term refers to every human, without any distinctions by group.

Now, one might say, though, that the word might still refer only to members of one’s own group because, at this point in the story, all humans are in fact still members of a single group. So let’s go to the next occurrence of the word. In the story of Judah and Tamar, Judah has a re‘a named Hirah the Adullamite (Genesis 38:12, 20). Hirah is a Canaanite! He comes from the (then) Canaanite city of Adullam. He cannot be a member of Judah’s clan because, at this point in the story, that clan, namely the Israelites, consists only of Jacob and his children and any grandchildren.

In Exodus 11:2 the word appears in both the masculine and feminine in the account of how the Israelites are instructed to ask their Egyptian neighbors for silver and gold items before their exodus from Egypt. The word there refers quite precisely to non-Israelites. In Exodus 2:13, on the other hand, in the story of Moses’ intervention between two “Hebrews” who are fighting, he says to the one at fault, “Why do you strike your re‘a?” So in that episode it refers to an Israelite.

Snark/Art Resource, NY
TEACHING THE LAW. In this ninth-century illustration from the Bible of Charles the Bald, Moses explains the law to the Israelites. Fifty-two occurrences in the Bible’s Levite texts (E, P and D) refer to the importance of treating foreigners fairly—no distinction between an Israelite and a non-Israelite. “Love your neighbor as yourself” is also from a Levite text. Considering this pervasive Levite stress on the fair treatment of the alien, why would a Levite text then say you only need to love an Israelite “neighbor”? Our author believes it doesn’t—“neighbor” includes all humankind.

In short, the word re‘a is used to refer to an Israelite, a Canaanite, an Egyptian, or to everyone on earth.

And still some people say that “Love your re‘a as yourself” means just your fellow Israelite. When the Ten Commandments include one that says: “You shall not bear false witness against your re‘a” (Exodus 20:16; Deuteronomy 5:17), do they think that this meant that it was okay to lie in a trial if the defendant was a foreigner (even though elsewhere, as we saw, the law forbids Israel to “bend the judgment of an alien”)? When another of the Ten Commandments says not to covet your re‘a’s wife (Exodus 20:17; Deuteronomy 5:18), do they think that this meant that it was okay to covet a Hittite’s wife (even though elsewhere the Bible condemns King David for doing just that)?

Those who contend that “neighbor” refers only to one’s neighbors of your own people frequently cite its context. They quote the sentence that precedes the sentence about loving one’s neighbor. Looking at the two together, it reads like this:

You shall not take revenge, and you shall not keep on at the children of your people.
And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Since the two sentences were put together into a single verse when verse numbers were added to the Bible, some interpreters have assumed that the “love your neighbor as yourself” line must also be just about “the children of your people.” Why? No reason at all. Read Leviticus 19, carefully. Coming near the very center of the Torah, it is a remarkable mixture of laws of all kinds. It goes back and forth between ethical laws and ritual laws: sacrifice, heresy, injustice, mixing seeds, wearing mixed fabrics (shaatnez), consulting the dead, gossip, robbing, molten idols, caring for the poor. It has everything! I tell my students that if you’re on a desert island and can have only one chapter of the Bible with you, make it Leviticus 19. And its laws all come mixed in between each other. No line can be judged by what comes before it or after it. And, remember, there are no verse numbers or periods or commas in the original.

For more on the Book of Leviticus, read “What Does the Bible Say About Tattoos?” and “Book of Leviticus Verses Recovered from Burnt Hebrew Bible Scroll.”

The much respected Bible scholar Harry Orlinsky made the context argument in 1974.⁵ Because of his scholarly standing, he was followed by others. Robert Wright cited him in The Evolution of God.⁶ Wright had consulted with me on the matter of loving the alien, but unfortunately we didn’t discuss the “neighbor” verse; if we had, I would have cautioned him. Hector Avalos also followed Orlinsky, saying “as Orlinsky has deftly noted …”⁷ The “deftly noted” remark has been used (and often quoted) over and over again in connection with the interpretation of this verse. It was not deft at all.

The same “context” mistake was made by John Hartung, an evolutionary anthropologist⁸ who was cited and followed by Richard Dawkins in his bestselling The God Delusion, saying, “‘Love thy neighbor’ didn’t mean what we now think it means. It meant only ‘Love another Jew.’”⁹ Hartung emphasized the importance of context, but he then used only the one verse (quoted above), seemingly unaware that the joining of its two statements was done by those who created numbered verses centuries after the Bible was written.

“Love your neighbor as yourself” remains: Famous. Impressive. Fascinating. Inspiring. You can accept or challenge it. And you can decide whether you will follow it in your own life. But don’t change what it means.

“Love Your Neighbor: Only Israelites or Everyone?” by Richard Elliott Friedman was originally published in the September/October 2014 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. It was first republished in Bible History Daily on August 19, 2014.

Richard Elliott Friedman is the Ann and Jay Davis Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Georgia and Katzin Professor of Jewish Civilization Emeritus at the University of California, San Diego, and author of the classic Who Wrote the Bible? (1987). He was a visiting fellow at Cambridge and Oxford, a senior fellow of the American Schools of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, a visiting professor at the University of Haifa and participated in the City of David Project archaeological excavations of Jerusalem.

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Notes

a. Richard Elliott Friedman, “Taking the Biblical Text Apart,” Bible Review, Fall 2005.

b: Aharon Kempinski, “Israelite Conquest or Settlement? New Light from Tell Masos,” BAR, September 1976;

• Yigael Yadin, “Israel Comes to Canaan: Is the Biblical Account of the Israelite Conquest of Canaan Historically Reliable?” BAR, March/April 1982;
• Ziony Zevit, “The Problem of Ai,” BAR, March/April 1985;
• David Ussishkin, “Lachish—Key to the Israelite Conquest of Canaan?” BAR, January/February 1987;
• Bryant G. Wood, “Did the Israelites Conquer Jericho? A New Look at the Archaeological Evidence,” BAR, March/April 1990;
• Hershel Shanks, “When Did Ancient Israel Begin?” BAR, January/February 2012;
• Amnon Ben-Tor, “Who Destroyed Canaanite Hazor?” BAR, July/August 2013.

1. Michael Homan, To Your Tents O Israel (Leiden: Brill, 2002), pp. 111–115.

2. Scott Noegel demonstrated this in an impressive paper at the Out of Egypt conference: “The Ark of the Covenant and Egyptian Sacred Barks: A Comparative Study” (conference, San Diego, May 31–June 9, 2013).

3. William Propp, Exodus 1–18, The Anchor Bible (New York: Doubleday, 1999), p. 128.

4. Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22, The Anchor Bible (New York: Doubleday, 2000), p. 1654; and see bibliography there.

5. Harry Orlinsky, Essays in Biblical Culture and Bible Translation (New York: Ktav, 1974), p. 83.

6. Wright cited him in The Evolution of God (New York: Little, 2009), pp. 235–236.

7. Hector Avalos, Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2005), p. 140.

8. John Hartung, “Love Thy Neighbor: The Evolution of In-Group Morality,” Struggles for Existence (blog), (strugglesforexistence.com/?p=article_p&id=13).

9. Dawkins, The God Delusion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 2006), p. 253.

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There are only three mentions of left-handed people in the Bible—and all of them refer to members of the tribe of Benjamin, including their deadly accurate slingers (see drawing above). Were these people from the tribe of Benjamin left-handed by nature or nurture? Modern studies in the genetics of left-handedness may be able to shed light on this curious case. (Drawing by Josh Seevers, courtesy of Boyd Seevers)

The Hebrew Bible mentions left-handed people on three occasions: the story of Ehud’s assassination of the Moabite king (Judges 3:12–30), the 700 Benjamites who could use the sling with deadly accuracy (Judges 20:16) and the two-dozen ambidextrous warriors who came to support David in Hebron (1 Chronicles 12:2). All of these stories of left-handed people in the Bible appear in military contexts, and, curiously, all involve members of the tribe of Benjamin.

In a Biblical Views column in the May/June 2013 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, professors Boyd Seevers and Joanna Klein ask the question, “Were these warriors from the tribe of Benjamin left-handed by nature or nurture?” Citing studies in the genetics of left-handedness and Biblical texts, Seevers and Klein show that it may have been a bit of both.

Benjamites may have been genetically disposed to left-handedness at birth, but the trait may also have been encouraged in soldiers to give them a strategic advantage in combat—somewhat like left-handed baseball pitchers today—against right-handed opponents who were unaccustomed to fighting “lefties.” Warriors from the tribe of Benjamin might have been trained to be equally or more effective with their left hands.

Then again, perhaps the Biblical writers simply enjoyed a bit of word play. The name Benjamin means “son of (my) right hand.” Perhaps the irony of left-handed “sons of right-handers” caused the Biblical authors to take note in these cases.

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This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on May 31, 2013.

Related reading in Bible History Daily

The Tel Dan Inscription: The First Historical Evidence of King David from the Bible

Who Were the Ammonites, Moabites and Edomites in the Bible?

Who Are the Nephilim?

Beth Shean in the Bible and Archaeology

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library

Biblical Views: Left-Handed Sons of Right-Handers

Why King Mesha of Moab Sacrificed His Oldest Son

Ancient Israel’s Neighbors—The Transjordanian Kingdoms of Ammon, Moab, and Edom

The post Left-Handed People in the Bible appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

This illustration shows Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, where God gave them the command to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28). Photo: From Charles Foster, The Story of the Bible (1897).

While there are many examples of strong and inspiring men and women in Genesis, the book is also packed with stories of dysfunctional families, which is evidenced from the very beginning with the first family—Adam, Eve and their two children, Cain and Abel. In no short amount of time—just 16 verses after announcing the birth of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4—Cain has murdered his younger brother and is consequently exiled from the land. In theory, this would have dropped the world’s population from four down to three. The narrative continues in Genesis 4 with Cain settling in the land of Nod and having children with his wife. Who did Cain marry? Where did she come from? Are there other people outside of Eden? In the November/December 2013 issue of BAR, Mary Joan Winn Leith addresses these questions and explores the identity of the wife of Cain in “Who Did Cain Marry?”

Given that the wife of Cain is only mentioned once in the Old Testament, she would not be counted among the famous women in Genesis. Nevertheless, her identity is still worth investigating. Who did Cain marry? Mary Joan Winn Leith first explores the traditional Jewish and Christian answers that contend that the wife of Cain was another daughter of Adam and Eve. According to this reasoning, Cain would have married his sister—one of Abel’s twin sisters no less, according to the Genesis Rabbah.

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Mary Joan Winn Leith explores the identity of the wife of Cain.

A different answer emerges when Leith turns from the traditional responses about the wife of Cain and delves into modern scholarship. Looking at recent work done by sociologists and anthropologists, she notes that when forming a group identity, we tend to define ourselves by how we differ from other groups. In the ancient Near East, sometimes those outside of a particular group or society were considered less “human” by those inside of the group. An important factor that contributes to this mindset is geography. People in the ancient Near East typically stayed close to home, which affected their perception of the world. Surely they knew that other groups of people—potential enemies or allies—existed far away, but if they never came into contact with these groups, what did they matter?

Mary Joan Winn Leith suggests that while the Israelite storyteller knew that other men and women in Genesis existed outside of Eden, they did not matter to him or factor into his account. He was concerned with Adam and Eve and their progeny—not those outside of this group.

Who did Cain marry? There are many answers. For Leith’s explanation of the identity of the wife of Cain—one of the often-overlooked women in Genesis—read her full Biblical Views column “Who Did Cain Marry?”

BAS Library Members: Read the full Biblical Views column “Who Did Cain Marry?” by Mary Joan Winn Leith in the November/December 2013 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Not a BAS Library or All-Access Member yet? Join today.

This Bible History Daily feature was originally published in 2013.

Related reading in Bible History Daily

What Happened to Cain in the Bible?

Cain and Abel in the Bible

The Adam and Eve Story: Eve Came From Where?

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library

Dealing with the Devil

Was Eve Made from Adam’s Rib—or His Baculum?

Eve and Adam

Cain & Abel

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But did you know that even the Bible is studied for a newer understanding of its traditional themes—themes that have shaped society for millennia?

It’s true. And one of the most closely-studied stories is that of the first people to walk the Earth as God’s creations. The story of Adam, Eve, and the Fall forms the underpinning of almost all of our understanding of men and women, making it perhaps the most important theme from the Bible to study and reconsider.

The brand-new collection in the Biblical Archaeology Society Library, Adam and Eve, highlights intriguing insights on women’s role in the Bible and ancient thought—some of which might even be called feminist, right in the heart of patriarchal world religions.

It’s entirely possible that Adam actually “gave birth” to Eve via his os baculum (penis bone), not his rib.

In the Bible, the Fall is not sexual in nature—and Adam didn’t have to be seduced or convinced to eat the apple.

The ancient religious belief that women are evil is derived not from the Bible, but from extra-Biblical texts known as pseudepigrapha.

A feminist interpretation of the Creation story recasts woman as superior to man.

Certainly you’ll want to explore these ideas. For instance, it almost seems obvious that if humans have always been considered superior to all other animals because they were created last, then Eve, God’s final creation, is therefore the ultimate and most divine of all his works.

Similarly, while traditional interpretations of the reason for the Serpent choosing Eve for his scheme is because she is weaker and less intelligent, it’s equally logical to say Eve was chosen because she is more intelligent and better able to engage in theological discussion with the Serpent.

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Innocent or guilty?

These are just two of the points made in “Eve and Adam: Is a Feminist Reading Possible?” by Professor Pamela J. Milne. But why, exactly, is a feminist reading even necessary? Students of the Hebrew Bible know quite well that the Eve of that story is not a seductress. In fact, she neither deceives Adam nor coerces him into eating the fruit.

Photo: From Charles Foster, The Story of the Bible (1897).

Writes Susan L. Greiner in “Did Eve Fall or Was She Pushed?”:

“The word ‘sin’ is never applied to Eve; indeed, it does not even appear in the Creation account. Further, in the Bible, the Fall is not sexual in nature.”

It’s difficult to decide why the earliest theologians went to such extremes in rewriting Genesis. And while discussion of the topic is enticing, there are other, less gender-charged themes to uncover in the story of Adam and Eve.

For instance, have you ever stopped to consider how Adam and Eve made a living in the Garden of Eden? Frederic L. Pryor and Eleanor Ferris Beach have, and they take readers on a path through anthropological research and the economics of primitive societies to demonstrate that the description of Adam and Eve’s transition from gatherers—in Eden—to farmers/shepherds—after the expulsion from Paradise—closely resembles the evolution of early humans.

Breaking new ground in Biblical studies

For scholars both professional and lay, there is almost nothing more exciting than challenging traditional thought. That’s why this newest Special Collection from the BAS Library is already one of our most popular among our members.

Here’s what’s included in Adam and Eve:

• Was Eve Made from Adam’s Rib—or His Baculum? by Ziony Zevit
• Creating Woman by Mary Joan Winn Leith
• Did Eve Fall or Was She Pushed? by Susan L. Greiner
• Eve and Adam—Is a Feminist Reading Possible? by Pamela J. Milne
• How Did Adam & Eve Make a Living? by Eleanor Ferris Beach and Frederic L. Pryor

This article was first published in Bible History Daily on June 4, 2019.

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“So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.”
—Genesis 2:21–22, NRSV

ADAM AND EVE IN THE BIBLE. This mosaic from the Cathedral of Monreale, Sicily, depicts the creation of woman in the Bible. Eve is shown emerging from Adam’s side. Most translations of the Adam and Eve story say that Eve was created from Adam’s rib, but Ziony Zevit contends that she was created from a very different part of Adam’s body.

According to the Bible’s creation account, after making the heavens and the earth, God created humankind. The Adam and Eve story in Genesis 2 states that God formed Adam out of the dust of the ground, and then Eve was created from one of Adam’s ribs. But was it really his rib?

The Hebrew word that is traditionally translated as “rib” is tsela‘. Ziony Zevit, Distinguished Professor of Biblical Literature and Northwest Semitic Languages at American Jewish University in Bel-Air, California, believes that this translation is wrong, as do many scholars. It was first translated as “rib” in the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the mid-third century B.C.E. However, a more careful reading of the Hebrew word for “rib” in the Adam and Eve story suggests that Eve was created from another, very different, part of Adam’s anatomy—his os baculum (penis bone).

Zevit carefully examines the account of the creation of woman in the Bible in his article “Was Eve Made from Adam’s Rib—or His Baculum?” which appears in the September/October 2015 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

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Of the 40 appearances of tsela‘ in the Bible, the Adam and Eve story is the only place where it is translated as “rib.” Usually it means the side of something. Zevit explains the nuance of this word:

This Hebrew word occurs some 40 times in the Hebrew Bible, where it refers to the side of a building or of an altar or ark (Exodus 25:12; 26:20, 26; 1 Kings 6:34), a side-chamber (1 Kings 6:8; Ezekiel 41:6), or a branch of a mountain (2 Samuel 16:13). In each of these instances, it refers to something off-center, lateral to a main structure. The only place where tsela‘ might be construed as referring to a rib that branches off from the spinal cord is in Genesis 2:21–22.

According to Zevit, “rib” is the wrong translation for tsela‘ in the Adam and Eve story in the Bible. Zevit believes that tsela‘ should be translated as “a non-specific, general term,” such as one of Adam’s lateral limbs, in the Adam and Eve story. Thus, it refers to “limbs lateral to the vertical axis of an erect human body: hands, feet, or, in the case of males, the penis.”

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Which of these lateral limbs lacks a bone? Human males do not have a penis bone, but many mammals do. Zevit concludes that in the story of Adam and Eve in the Bible, the woman was created from the man’s baculum to explain why this appendage does not have a bone.

To see Ziony Zevit’s full explanation of the Adam and Eve story in the Bible, read his article “Was Eve Made from Adam’s Rib—or His Baculum?” in the September/October 2015 issue of BAR.

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This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on September 15, 2015.

Related reading in Bible History Daily

Adam and Eve

How the Serpent in the Garden Became Satan

The Creation of Woman in the Bible

Lilith in the Bible and Mythology

What Does the Bible Say About Infertility?

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library

Was Eve Made from Adam’s Rib—or His Baculum?

How Did Adam & Eve Make a Living?

Dealing with the Devil

From Eden to Ednah—Lilith in the Garden

Eve and Adam

The post The Adam and Eve Story: Eve Came From Where? appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Lighten up! Laughter is an important, and often overlooked, literary element in the Bible. Perhaps Vincent Van Gogh’s Still Life with Bible could have used more pigments from his floral paintings? Photo: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam/Vincent van Gogh Foundation.

“The heart knows its own bitterness, and no stranger shares its joy.”
—Proverbs 14:10

“A cheerful heart is a good medicine.”
—Proverbs 17:22

I remember one day resolving to do arduous work in 2 Chronicles. Studiously plowing through the reigns of Solomon through Jehoshaphat, I came to 2 Chronicles 21:20 and laughed outright. The text reads, “Jehoram was thirty-two years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eight years. He passed away, to no one’s regret, and was buried in the City of David, but not in the tombs of the kings” (italics added). Being a wordsmith myself, I smiled at this bygone scribe relieved at this monarch’s death. Evidently Jehoram was not well liked. The editorial statement provides a light touch—comic relief, if you will—to the Chronicler’s usually routine kingship formula.

As I study and teach, I find I read the Bible ever more slowly, and as I do, I smile more and more frequently. I listen for its humor. My emotions span sorrow, understanding or joy as I empathize with the characters who cross its pages. I chuckle at many passages, even while acknowledging the sadness they may contain. Consequently, I believe it’s possible to read many verses, stories and even books through the lens of humor, indeed to see portions of the Bible as intended to be very funny. An appropriate response is laughter. I’ve come to this conclusion: Humor is a fundamental sub-theme in both testaments.

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Laughter in the Hebrew Bible

Let’s start with an umbrella verse, Ecclesiastes 3:4: “A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.” The Biblical text, always practical, acknowledges human emotions and makes boundaries for their proper use.

God’s Laughter in the Hebrew Bible

Let’s look at God’s laughter. After all, he’s the creator.

Consider Psalm 37:12-13: “The wicked plot against the righteous, and gnash their teeth at them; but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that their day is coming.” Laughter here shows the impotence of the wicked and the futility of their plots and gnashings against the righteous. Why? Because, as the psalm answers, those who hope in the Lord will inherit the land and the Lord knows the wicked face a reckoning.

God directs the same kind of laughter toward earthly hotshots who think their power exceeds his. Psalm 2:2, 4 declares that when “the kings of the earth take their stand,” marshalling themselves “against the Lord … and against his Anointed One,” then “the One enthroned in heaven laughs.”

But Zephaniah 3:17 illustrates joy, a different aspect of God’s laughter and character, one more consistently expressed throughout the Biblical text: “He will take great delight in you … he will rejoice over you with singing.” My students often are amazed that the idea of rejoicing carries with it the idea of physical activity. The verse presents this possibility: God’s delight can entail joyful songs and public dancing.

Who Is Responsible?

One story that makes me laugh is the conversation taking place somewhere on Mt. Sinai between God and Moses. The recently-released Hebrew slaves are sinning by worshipping a calf made of gold and declaring that it, not the Lord, led them out of Egypt (Exodus 32:4-6). Neither God nor Moses wants these rowdies at this moment. Like a hot potato, responsibility for the former slaves passes back and forth between them.

Robin Gallaher Branch has written several Bible History Daily-exclusive character studies. Read her commentary on Judith, Barnabas, Anna and Tabitha.

The Lord swaps first, telling Moses the reveling Israelites are “your people” (v. 7) (italics added). But Moses quickly catches on. He declines association with them. As far as Moses is concerned, these people are not his! Morphing into intercession mode and speaking in what no doubt is a respectful tone, Moses rejoins, “O, Lord, why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?” (v. 11) (italics added). He reminds the Lord of his promise to his servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel to make their descendants “as numerous as the stars in the sky” (v. 13). This scene’s humor softens the chapter, which ends sorrowfully. The Israelites’ sin leads quickly to the deaths of many by plague, and thus the chapter ends (Exodus 32:35). The chapter’s structure incorporates dialogue, rebellion, crisis, and punishment.

Biblical Humor Through Innuendo

Consider Genesis 18:10-15, wherein God informs Abraham and Sarah they will have a son by “this time next year” (v. 10). Sarah openly laughs, thinking she is worn out and now will have sexual pleasure again (v. 11). After all, she is about 89! We learn later that Abraham, probably about 99, also thought along sexual lines. He believed God could give him and Sarah descendants and make them parents even though he—as a man—was “as good as dead” (Hebrews 11:11-12). The idea of fathering a child at his age struck him as funny.

Humorous Books in the Hebrew Bible

Whole books in the Hebrew Bible have strong elements of humor. An ongoing humorous element in the Book of Esther is the number of banquets it mentions. They number at least 10, thereby forming the book’s structure and carrying much of its action. One wonders: Do these rulers do anything except dine and wine and plot and whine?

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We are meant to laugh and learn throughout the Book of Jonah. Yes, we can laugh at Jonah’s open disobedience of going west to Tarshish when God commands him to go northeast to Nineveh (Jonah 1:1-3); at Jonah’s “time out” to think about things in the belly of the great fish (1:17a); at his pouting, obstinate silence for three days while being digested (1:17b); at his being vomited by the great fish on dry land—somewhere probably in the Mediterranean world (2:10); at his terse, seven-word sermon to Nineveh (3:4); at his anger over the success of this sermon, the repentance of the entire city (4:1). But the laughter is sometimes tinged with sadness, for Jonah’s anger prevails and he never understands God’s compassion for those who do not know him and for their cattle (4:11). Indeed everything in the Book of Jonah—the sailors, sea, big fish, gourd vine, hot wind and the Ninevites—obeys God. Everything and everybody except one: Jonah. God shows his colors of compassion and mercy—and Jonah disdains them.

Humor in the New Testament

The New Testament, similarly, abounds with laughter. Jesus must have been a compelling personality to keep the attention of crowds for days and the steadfast loyalty of at least twelve disciples for three years. In addition to being a riveting teacher whose words brought life, he was likely the kind of personality that was just fun to be around.

For example, a crowd numbering about 5,000 men followed him to a solitary place (Mark 6:30-44). Jesus’ teaching evidently made people forget to eat, bring food or worry about work.

In his classic work The Humor of Christ, Elton Trueblood lists thirty humorous passages in the Synopic Gospels. In one way or another, they’re all one liners, parables or stories Jesus told. Trueblood thinks Jesus’ audience would have laughed at the image of those who loudly proclaim their righteous actions to others (Matt. 6:2) because it was all too prevalent. An audience would have found the idea of rulers calling themselves benefactors ludicrous (Luke 22:25)—because the working folks knew all too well it wasn’t so. No doubt the audience chuckled when Jesus commended the vociferous, obstreperous widow for her persistent pestering of the unjust judge and cited her as a successful model of prayer (Luke 18:1-8).

Paul employs humor in his letter to the new church in Corinth (1 Corinthians 12:12-27). He addresses several problems reported to him. The problems—pride, exclusivity and attitudes of “I don’t need or want you”—could destroy the new church, for they counter the love Jesus taught. Instead of singling out by name troublemakers in Corinth, he allegorizes the situation in a humorous, non-threatening, open way: “The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, I don’t need you’” (v. 12:21). Paul affirms the need of all parts, and their need to function in unity, in the Body of Christ.

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In the home of Jairus, a synagogue ruler, Jesus uses practical knowledge to break a tense situation. Jairus’ twelve-year-old daughter just died. Jesus, three of his disciples and the child’s parents fill the room (Mark 5:40). Jesus goes to the body, picks up the girl’s hand, says to her, “Talitha koum!” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, get up!” (v. 41). The girl immediately gets up and walks around the room (v. 42a). Mark records the reaction of those in the room as “completely astonished” (v. 42b); in other words, they’re probably stunned and silent. Jesus responds with something practical: He tells them to give her something to eat (v. 43). A natural human reaction—when grief is turned to unexpected joy as when a dead girl is brought back to life—is something loud like laughter or shouting. Here, Jesus cracks a joke by reminding everybody that a girl who has been sick, experienced death, and is now alive is hungry! Of course she needs to eat! All twelve year-olds have ravenous appetites! This practical, timely and kind statement from Jesus breaks all the tension, pent-up grief and amazement present in the room among the girl’s parents and Jesus’ three disciples. I read this scene as Jesus’ cracking a joke. And the proper appreciation of a joke is laughter.

This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on August 21, 2013.

Robin Gallaher Branch received her Ph.D. in Hebrew Studies from the University of Texas in Austin in 2000. She was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship for the 2002–2003 academic year to the Faculty of Theology at North-West University. Her most recent book is Jereboam’s Wife: The Enduring Contributions of the Old Testament’s Least-Known Women (Hendrickson, 2009).

More from Robin Gallaher Branch in Bible History Daily

What’s Funny About the Gospel of Mark?

Deborah in the Bible

Judith: A Remarkable Heroine

Barnabas: An Encouraging Early Church Leader

Part II—Barnabas: An Encouraging Early Church Leader

The post Laughter in the Bible? Absolutely! appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

What purpose did creation stories in Genesis serve? Were they Biblical myths? Pictured here is The Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man (c. 1617) by Flemish painters Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder.

Were the creation stories in Genesis meant to be taken literally?

Maybe not, says biblical scholar Shawna Dolansky in her Biblical Views column “The Multiple Truths of Myths” in the January/February 2016 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Our world is very different from the world in which the Biblical authors lived over 2,000 years ago. The ancient world did not have Google, Wikipedia and smartphones—access to information on human history and scientific achievements developed over millennia at the touch of their fingertips.

Many scholars believe that the ancient Israelites had creation stories that were told and retold; these stories eventually reached the Biblical authors, who wrote them down in Genesis and other books of the Bible. Creation stories in Genesis were etiological, Shawna Dolansky and other Biblical scholars argue.¹ That is, the creation stories in Genesis served to provide answers to why the world was the way it was, such as why people wear clothes and why women experience pain during childbirth.

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Creation stories in Genesis were among the many myths that were told in the ancient Near East. Today we may think of myths as beliefs that are not true, but as a literary genre, myths “are stories that convey and reinforce aspects of a culture’s worldview: many truths,” writes Dolansky. So to call something a myth—in this sense—does not necessarily imply that it is not true.

Scholars argue that Biblical myths arose within the context of other ancient Near Eastern myths that sought to explain the creation of the world. Alongside Biblical myths were Mesopotamian myths in which, depending on the account, the creator was Enlil, Mami or Marduk. In ancient Egyptian mythology, the creator of the world was Atum in one creation story and Ptah in another.

Shawna Dolansky

“Like other ancient peoples, the Israelites told multiple creation stories,” writes Shawna Dolansky in her Biblical Views column. “The Bible gives us three (and who knows how many others were recounted but not preserved?). Genesis 1 differs from Genesis 2–3, and both diverge from a third version alluded to elsewhere in the Bible, a myth of the primordial battle between God and the forces of chaos known as Leviathan (e.g., Psalm 74), Rahab (Psalm 89) or the dragon (Isaiah 27; 51). This battle that preceded creation has the Mesopotamian Enuma Elish as its closest analogue. In Enuma Elish, the god Marduk defeats the chaotic waters in the form of the dragon Tiamat and recycles her corpse to create the earth.”

In what other ways do Biblical myths parallel ancient Near Eastern myths? What can we learn about the world in which the ancient Israelites lived through the creation stories in Genesis? Learn more by reading the full Biblical Views column “The Multiple Truths of Myths” by Shawna Dolansky in the January/February 2016 issue of BAR.

BAS Library Members: Read the full Biblical Views column “The Multiple Truths of Myths” by Shawna Dolansky in the January/February 2016 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

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Notes

1. For example, see Ziony Zevit, “Was Eve Made from Adam’s Rib—or His Baculum?” BAR, September/October 2015; Mary Joan Winn Leith, “ReViews: Restoring Nudity,” BAR, May/June 2014.

Related reading in Bible History Daily

The Adam and Eve Story: Eve Came From Where?

The Creation of Woman in the Bible

What Does the Bible Say About Infertility?

How the Serpent in the Garden Became Satan

Love Your Neighbor: Only Israelites or Everyone?

The Animals Went in Two by Two, According to Babylonian Ark Tablet

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library

The Creation Story from Genesis

Creation Myths Breed Violence

The Persistence of Chaos in God’s Creation

This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on January 31, 2016.

The post Should We Take Creation Stories in Genesis Literally? appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

C.S. Lewis’s character Jadis, the White Witch of Narnia, in his The Chronicles of Narnia novels is said to have descended from Lilith, Adam’s first wife. Pictured here is Tilda Swinton as Jadis, the White Witch of Narnia, in the film adaptation The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005).

C.S. Lewis, one of the most beloved authors of the 20th century, created a magical, fictional world called Narnia. The primary villain of the first book of this series, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, is Jadis, the White Witch. Below is the character Edmund’s description of the White Witch when he first meets her:

A great lady, taller than any woman that Edmund had ever seen. She also was covered in white fur up to her throat and held a long straight golden wand in her right hand and wore a golden crown on her head. Her face was white—not merely pale, but white like snow or paper or icing-sugar, except for her very red mouth. It was a beautiful face in other respects, but proud and cold and stern.
(The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe)

Jadis, the White Witch, is beautiful—and terrifying. Although she looks like a human, she is not. According to the character Mr. Beaver, the White Witch was descended from Lilith, Adam’s first wife, on one side and from giants on the other.

Who is Lilith? Is there any warrant for calling Lilith Adam’s first wife, or is this just the baseless chatter of woodland creatures? Are there appearances of Lilith in the Bible?

Dan Ben-Amos, Professor of Folklore and Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, explores the figure of Lilith in the Bible and mythology in his article “From Eden to Ednah—Lilith in the Garden” in the May/June 2016 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review. His analysis shows that Lilith is an intriguing figure who has taken on many shapes over the millennia. From this, we see that Jadis, the White Witch, shares more than just lineage with her supposed ancestor.

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Who is Lilith: Beauty or horror? English painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Lady Lilith (1866–68; altered 1872–73) depicts Lilith, Adam’s first wife, as a beautiful woman. Who is Lilith? According to Rossetti’s interpretation, she was a beauty. Photo: Delaware Art Museum

Lilith is first mentioned in ancient Babylonian texts as a class of winged female demons that attacks pregnant women and infants. From Babylonia, the legend of “the lilith” spread to ancient Anatolia, Syria, Israel, Egypt and Greece. In this guise—as a wilderness demoness—she appears in Isaiah 34:14 among a list of nocturnal creatures who will haunt the destroyed Kingdom of Edom. This is her only mention in the Bible, but her legend continued to grow in ancient Judaism.

During the Middle Ages, Jewish sources began to claim her as Adam’s first—and terrifying—wife. How did Lilith evolve from being a wilderness demoness to Adam’s first wife?

Interestingly enough, this story begins at the beginning—in Genesis 1.

The creation of humans is described in Genesis 1 and in Genesis 2. The first account is fairly straightforward: “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27). The second account describes how God formed man out of the dust of the ground and then creates woman from the man: “Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. … So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man” (Genesis 2:7, 21–22).

In the post-Biblical period, some ancient Jewish scholars took the stance that Genesis 1:27 and Genesis 2:21–22 must describe two separate events, since it appears that woman is created differently in these accounts. In her Bible Review article “Lilith” in the October 2001 issue, Professor Janet Howe Gaines explains this reasoning: “Considering every word of the Bible to be accurate and sacred, commentators needed a midrash or story to explain the disparity in the creation narratives of Genesis 1 and 2. God creates woman twice—once with man, once from man’s rib—so there must have been two women. The Bible names the second woman Eve; Lilith was identified as the first in order to complete the story.” Accordingly, Genesis 1:27 describes the creation of Adam and an unnamed woman (Lilith); Genesis 2:7 gives more details of Adam’s creation; and Genesis 2:21–22 describes the creation of Eve from Adam.

Who is Lilith: Beauty or horror? This Aramaic incantation bowl depicts Lilith as a demoness. A text that mentions Lilith and other evil spirits is written on the inside of the bowl in spiral concentric circles. Incantation bowls were meant to both capture and repel evil spirits. Who is Lilith? According to this representation, which is more consistent with the appearance of “the lilith” in the Bible, she was a horror. Photo: Courtesy V. Klagsbald, Jerusalem

Lilith’s creation is recounted in The Tales of Ben Sira, an apocryphal work from the tenth century C.E. Dan Ben-Amos explains that although this is the first extant text that records the legend of Lilith, her story probably existed earlier:

[Lilith’s] story seems to hover at the edges of literacy with sporadic references. … [I]n the post-Biblical period, the sages identify the lilith several times, not by name, but as “the First Eve,” indicating that her full story was well known in oral tradition, yet barred from the canonized Biblical text. Finally, in the tenth century C.E. in Babylon, an anonymous writer, who was not bound by normative traditional principles and who included in his book some other sexually explicit tales, spelled out the lilith’s adventures in paradise.

The Tales of Ben Sira relates that God created Lilith from the earth, just as he had created Adam. They immediately began fighting because neither would submit to the other. Recognizing that Adam would not listen to her, Lilith “pronounced the Ineffable Name and flew away into the air” (The Tales of Ben Sira). The angels Snvi, Snsvi and Smnglof were sent to pursue Lilith, but when they reached her, she refused to return with them to the Garden of Eden. “‘Leave me!’ she said. ‘I was created only to cause sickness to infants. If the infant is male, I have dominion over him for eight days after his birth, and if female, for twenty days’” (The Tales of Ben Sira). As a compromise, she promised that whenever she saw the angels’ names or forms on amulets, she would leave the child alone. She also agreed that 100 of her children—demons—would die every day.

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Lilith sins by impudently uttering the sacred syllables, thereby demonstrating to a medieval audience her unworthiness to reside in Paradise. So Lilith flies away, having gained power to do so by pronouncing God’s avowed name. Though made of the earth, she is not earthbound. Her dramatic departure reestablishes for a new generation Lilith’s supernatural character as a winged devil.

Gaines also explains Lilith’s hatred for human babies: “Ben Sira’s story suggests that Lilith is driven to kill babies in retaliation for Adam’s mistreatment and God’s insistence on slaying 100 of her progeny daily.”

To learn more about Biblical women with slighted traditions, take a look at the Bible History Daily feature Scandalous Women in the Bible, which includes articles on Lilith, Mary Magdalene and Jezebel.

The Lilith legend continued to grow and change over the following centuries, which is reflected in various artistic depictions of her. While some portrayed Lilith as a beautiful woman, others showed her in a more sinister light. Some even depicted her as the serpent in the Garden of Eden who convinced Eve to eat the forbidden fruit.

Jadis, the White Witch of Narnia, shares similarities with Lilith. Not only are both of them strong, terrifying women, but they also seem bent on destroying human life. Both wield dark magic and are immortal beings. As revealed in C.S. Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew, Jadis gains immortality by eating a silver apple inside a walled garden in Narnia. This episode has some obvious connections to the account of the Garden of Eden in the Bible. Additionally, both pronounce an ineffable word and suffer dire consequences as a result. The Magician’s Nephew tells how Jadis—before she became the White Witch—pronounced the Deplorable Word, which killed every living thing in her world, Charn, except for herself. So great was her desire for power and her refusal to submit, she spoke the Deplorable Word—knowing full well that it would kill every living person and thing in her world—rather than surrender her claim to the throne of Charn. These examples demonstrate that the character Jadis bears both the blood and the character of her foremother Lilith.

From demoness to Adam’s first wife, Lilith is a terrifying force. To learn more about Lilith in the Bible and mythology, read Dan Ben-Amos’s full article—“From Eden to Ednah—Lilith in the Garden”—in the May/June 2016 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

BAS Library Members: Read the full article “From Eden to Ednah—Lilith in the Garden” by Dan Ben-Amos in the May/June 2016 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.

Not a BAS Library or All-Access Member yet? Join today.

This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on May 2, 2016.

Related reading in Bible History Daily

Lilith

The Adam and Eve Story: Eve Came From Where?

The Creation of Woman in the Bible

All-Access members, read more in the BAS Library

From Eden to Ednah—Lilith in the Garden

Lilith

Giving Eve’s Daughters Their Due

Women in the Hebrew Bible

The Seductress of Qumran

The post Lilith in the Bible and Mythology appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.

Depicted here are God the Father, cherubim, angels, Adam, Eve and the serpent in the Garden of Eden in Domenichino’s painting The Rebuke of Adam and Eve (1626). Photo: Patrons’ Permanent Fund, National Gallery of Art.

The noun satan, Hebrew for “adversary” or “accuser,” occurs nine times in the Hebrew Bible: five times to describe a human military, political or legal opponent, and four times with reference to a divine being. In Numbers 22, the prophet Balaam, hired to curse the Israelites, is stopped by a messenger from Israel’s God YHWH, described as “the satan” acting on God’s behalf. In Job, “the satan” is a member of God’s heavenly council—one of the divine beings, whose role in Job’s story is to be an “accuser,” a status acquired by people in ancient Israel and Mesopotamia for the purposes of particular legal proceedings.

In Job’s case, what’s on trial is God’s assertion that Job is completely “blameless and upright” vs. the satan’s contention that Job only behaves himself because God has rewarded him. God argues that Job is rewarded because he is good, and not good because he is rewarded. The satan challenges God to a wager that if everything is taken away from poor Job, he won’t be so good anymore, and God accepts. Though a perception of “the satan” as Satan would make this portrait of God easier to swallow, the story demonstrates otherwise; like Yahweh’s messenger in Numbers 22, this satan acts on YHWH’s instructions (and as a result of God’s braggadocio) and is not an independent force of evil.

In Zechariah 3, the prophet describes a vision of the high priest Joshua standing in a similar divine council, also functioning as a tribunal. Before him stand YHWH’s messenger and the satan, who is there to accuse him. This vision is Zechariah’s way of pronouncing YHWH’s approval of Joshua’s appointment to the high priesthood in the face of adversarial community members, represented by the satan. The messenger rebukes the satan and orders that Joshua’s dirty clothing be replaced, as he promises Joshua continuing access to the divine council. Once again, the satan is not Satan who we read about in the New Testament.

The word satan appears only once without “the” in front of it in the entire Hebrew Bible: in 1 Chronicles 21:1. Is it possible that we finally have Satan here portrayed? 1 Chronicles 21 parallels the story of David’s census in 2 Samuel 24, in which God orders David to “go number Israel and Judah” and then punishes king and kingdom for doing so. The Chronicler changes this story, as he does others, to portray the relationship between God and David as uncompromised; he writes that “a satan stood up against Israel and he provoked David to number Israel” (1 Chronicles 21:6–7; 27:24). Although it is possible to read “Satan” here instead of “a satan” (Hebrew uses neither uppercase letters, nor indefinite articles, e.g., “a”), nothing else in this story or in any texts for another 300 years indicates that the idea of an evil prince of darkness exists in the consciousness of the Israelites.

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If there’s no Satan in the Hebrew Bible, how does the serpent in the garden become Satan?

The worldview of Jewish readers of Genesis 2–3 profoundly changed in the centuries since the story was first written. After the canon of the Hebrew Bible closed,¹ beliefs in angels, demons and a final apocalyptic battle arose in a divided and turbulent Jewish community. In light of this impending end, many turned to a renewed understanding of the beginning, and the Garden of Eden was re-read—and re-written—to reflect the changing ideas of a changed world. Two separate things happened and then merged: Satan became the proper name of the devil, a supernatural power now seen to oppose God as the leader of demons and the forces of evil; and the serpent in the Garden of Eden came to be identified with him. While we begin to see the first idea occurring in texts two centuries before the New Testament, the second won’t happen until later; the serpent in the Garden is not identified with Satan anywhere in the Hebrew Bible or New Testament.

The concept of the devil begins to appear in second and first centuries B.C.E. Jewish texts. In 1 Enoch, the “angel” who “led Eve astray” and “showed the weapons of death to the children of men” was called Gadreel (not Satan). Around the same time, the Wisdom of Solomon taught that “through the devil’s envy death entered the world, and those who are on his side suffer it.” Though this may very well be the earliest reference to Eden’s serpent as the devil, in neither text, nor in any document we have until after the New Testament, is satan clearly understood as the serpent in Eden. At Qumran, though, Satan is the leader of the forces of darkness; his power is said to threaten humanity, and it was believed that salvation would bring the absence of Satan and evil.

By the first century C.E., Satan is adopted into the nascent Christian movement, as ruler over a kingdom of darkness, an opponent and deceiver of Jesus (Mark 1:13), prince of the devils and opposing force to God (Luke 11:15–19; Matthew 12:24–27; Mark 3:22–23:26); Jesus’ ministry puts a temporary end to Satan’s reign (Luke 10:18) and the conversion of the gentiles leads them from Satan to God (Acts 26:18). Most famously, Satan endangers the Christian communities but will fall in Christ’s final act of salvation, described in detail in the book of Revelation.

But curiously, although the author of Revelation describes Satan as “the ancient serpent” (Revelation 12:9; 20:2), there is no clear link anywhere in the Bible between Satan and the serpent in the garden. The ancient Near Eastern combat myth motif, exemplified in the battle between Marduk and Tiamat in Enuma Elish and Baal and Yam/Mot in ancient Canaan, typically depicted the bad guy as a serpent. The characterization of Leviathan in Isaiah 27 reflects such myths nicely:

On that day YHWH will punish
With his hard and big and strong sword
Leviathan the fleeing serpent,
Leviathan the twisted serpent,
And he will kill the dragon that is in the sea.

So the reference in Revelation 12:9 to Satan as “the ancient serpent” probably reflects mythical monsters like Leviathan rather than the clever, legged, talking creature in Eden.

In the New Testament, Satan and his demons have the power to enter and possess people; this is what is said to have happened to Judas (Luke 22:3; John 13:27; cf. Mark 5:12–13; Luke 8:30–32). But when Paul re-tells the story of Adam and Eve, he places the blame on the humans (Romans 5:18; cf. 1 Corinthians 15:21–22) and not on fallen angels, or on the serpent as Satan. Still, the conflation begged to be made, and it will seem natural for later Christian authors—Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Cyprian, Irenaeus and Augustine, for example—to assume Satan’s association with Eden’s talking snake. Most famously, in the 17th century, John Milton elaborates Satan’s role in the Garden poetically, in great detail in Paradise Lost. But this connection is not forged anywhere in the Bible.

Shawna Dolansky is Adjunct Research Professor and Instructor in the program in Religion at the College of Humanities, Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario. She coauthored the well-known The Bible Now (Oxford Univ. Press, 2011) with Richard Friedman.

Notes

1. The book of Daniel was the latest book to be included in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament and dates to about 162 B.C.E.

This Bible History Daily feature was originally published on April 8, 2016.

Related reading in Bible History Daily

Who Is Satan?

Should We Take Creation Stories in Genesis Literally?

The Adam and Eve Story: Eve Came From Where?

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Satan’s Throne

How Did Adam & Eve Make a Living?

Dealing with the Devil

From Eden to Ednah—Lilith in the Garden

Was Eve Made from Adam’s Rib—or His Baculum?

The post How the Serpent in the Garden Became Satan appeared first on Biblical Archaeology Society.