The creation of Eve

As I often say, I think a useful interpretive step when we read historical narratives of Scripture is to imagine what the scene looks like. What did the narrator intend the reader to see in his mind's eye? If we can't visualize it, we don't really understand it. We lack a clear idea of what was happening. That's an element often missing in commentaries.

Take the creation of Eve. When he wrote that description, what images did the narrator have?

Scholars dispute how to render a key word. Is it an anatomical term or an architectural metaphor? Traditionally, God is said to make Eve from one of Adam's "ribs". In support of the traditional rendering, Adam says Eve is "bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh" (Gen 2:23; cf. Gen 29:14; 37:27).

However, scholars point out that almost uniformly, the word is an architectural term-especially in reference to the construction of the tabernacle furniture and Solomon's temple. For instance:

The word designates a side or the shell of the ark of the covenant...the side of a building...or even a whole room ("side chamber, arcade, cell"). Hamilton 1:178.

It is typically an architectural or structural term referring to a single object that has two matching sides (e.g. a pair of doors). John Walton in J. Daryl Charles ed. Reading Genesis 1-2, 166.

Mind you, the disjunction between anatomical and architectural terminology may be a false dichotomy inasmuch as some architectural terms are anatomical metaphors, viz. "rib" vaulting in Gothic architecture, or "ribs" in the hull of a wooden ship.

So the word may be a pun. If so, what's the intended symbolism?

In context, the passage has to have an anatomical emphasis, even if the term is figurative, because it describes Adam's body as the source or raw material for Eve's body.

Another issue is that if we think this was meant to be a historical account, then we need to offer a realistic interpretation-albeit supernatural. Some scholars don't take the account seriously, which allows them to propose impossible scenarios, viz. Adam was originally androgynous. God created male and female by bisecting Adam. That's the stuff of pagan mythology.

It's possible that the imagery prefigures or trades on the tabernacle. On the other hand, that could be the incidental consequence of the fact that most construction descriptions in the Pentateuch and OT generally concern details of the temple and tabernacle. So the clustering of terminology may be sample bias.

If it means "rib", should we visualize the Angel of the Lord extracting a rib from Adam, then replicating the rib to produce a rib cage for Eve, then extending the body from the torso, upwards and downwards?

If it's an architectural term, that presents more than one option. If it's like French doors, the symbolism evokes bilateral symmetry and chirality. And that would suit the identity of Eve as a counterpart to Adam. Moreover, Scripture often uses left-handed/right-handed imagery.

However, human bodies are wholes, not halves. So it's unclear how to convert that symbolism into a creative action the reader can picture.

"Side" is ambiguous inasmuch as human bodies are four-sided objects. So which side? Front? Back? Sideways?

Then there's the holistic meaning of the term: cell, shell, chamber, room. If we play along with that imagery, it might conjure up a casting process using Adam's body as a mold. When the mold is removed, it reveals the inner object, shaped by the mold into a negative 3D image. From what I've read, that technology existed in ancient Near Eastern metallurgy, at the time Genesis was written. So the original audience would have that frame of reference.

Of course, that presses the imagery in a way that's unrealistic. Adam's body isn't a hollow shell. And his body would be destroyed by the casting process. If, however, the creation of Eve is meant to be analogous to a casting process, it's useful to press the imagery in order to make the necessary adjustments.

Perhaps, then, the reader is supposed to visualize Eve emerging or rising out of of Adam's body. Think of movies in which someone dies, then you see a translucent astral body float out of the corpse. The Angel of the Lord would summon her forth from Adam's body. Out steps Eve, like she was in a case.