On Some Women in Genesis: CFM through the HB Week of 1/10-1/16

 Every Sunday I participate in a family history research power hour hosted by my ward. I’ve found researching my own family history to be very rewarding. I long for information about my ancestors and am thrilled when I find it. Over the past week in particular I’ve felt a great desire to find my own personal origins in my family history–like who in my family tree loves poetry or singing too loud in church? Dani and I are proud of our admittedly chaotic/ameture garden, and I was specifically thrilled to have a successful potato harvest this fall in light of my potato-farming great-grandparents. And this desire to connect the details of the lives of those who came before me percolated into my Bible study this week. I found myself interested in what the original authors intended of the text as usual, but also in how the text applies to me, the sometimes conflicting impulses of my heart, and the intellectual realms I was most drawn to in college. And Genesis 3-4 and even Moses 4-5 delivered much to apply. 

I also am finding that the sources readily available to me are affecting the lens through which I’m studying the scriptures. I have a reference guide to all the named and unnamed women in the Bible, and I’m finding that that wonderful book is guiding me to great insights of the feminist variety. There are multiple ways to read the Genesis creation accounts, some in fairness critical of the often toxically applied rhetoric in them, but for the moment, I’m finding myself focused a little on how the text of the Hebrew Bible articulates and celebrates womanhood. 

God’s Crowning Creation

The Genesis stories place women in a central role in the structure of creation and early genealogy. It has often been noted that woman, not man, is God’s crowning achievement in Genesis 1. The creation of woman signals completion and the start of the seventh day when God can rest because creation is complete. 

But this can perhaps be chalked up to coincidence if not for the pattern continuing (or preceding)  when it comes to the generations laid out after the Bible’s first family. Not only is Eve the last creation of God's 7-day pattern, but the 7th generation of humanity, as documented in Genesis 4:19-22 introduces us to the next three named women of the Bible. Sevens in ancient Hebrew culture signified completion, so it is telling that women are a final touch as both creation and society come into wholeness. . 

Co-wives Adah and Zillah give birth to this 7th generation, and their children are associated with important elements of society. 

Adah, who’s name means, roughly, “ornamental adornment” had two children: Jabal and Jubal. Jabal is identified as an “ancestor of those who live in tents and have livestock.” Jubal is identified as “the ancestor of all those who play the lyre and pipe.” 

Zillah, who’s name meaning is harder to identify but might mean “shade” or “a shrill melody,” had a son and a daughter. Her son Tubal-cain “made all kinds of bronze and iron tools.” Her daughter, Naamah is the last-named child of the Genesis genealogy and of the 7th generation. The text doesn’t associate her with a particular art or craft, but her name means either “loved one” or “singer,” which leads some to believe she is the archetypal ancestor of vocal music. 

As a music lover and singer myself, I find it inspiring that the Genesis authors felt the need to include Jubal, Zillah, and Naamah as patron ancestors of the musical arts. 

Eve 

Of course I can’t focus on women in Genesis without thinking a lot about Eve. 

In Genesis 3:2, Eve quotes God’s commandment different from 2:16-17. Eve, according to Genesis 2, was born after Adam, and after Adam had been given the commandment not to eat the fruit of the tree. The words of God then have gone through what you might consider a divine game of telephone, where the message changes over time based on a chain of recipients. Another way of framing this shift in meaning as it is transmitted from Adam to Eve (or from any one person to another) is that Eve elaborated on the meaning of the original message. She is the first human in scripture to do this. She is our first example, an early witness to the power of analyzing a text to make it more meaningful for you, specifically. 

Eve also shows analytical skill in thinking through her decision to partake of the fruit. Some LDS tellings of this story identify her desire to obey a commandment to multiply which  not included in this Genesis text*, but I actually think that Eve’s thought process in verse 6 are more meaningful than simply a reference to her potential for motherhood. Eve in the Genesis text is the original exemplar of three kinds of vision I think we would all do well to acquire. 

First, we read that “the woman saw that the tree was good for food.” This displays practical vision. Sometimes we need to find the clarity to see what is practical, what is necessary. In this case, Eve has the practical vision to see the fruit as a nutritional source. 

Second, we read “that it was a delight to the eyes,” articulating Eve’s aesthetic or artistic vision. Eve here is the first person not to simply identify something with its utilitarian good, but also for its beauty, subjectively perceived. The ability to see beauty in creation finds its origin in the first woman. 

Third, Eve sees that “the tree was desired to make one wise.” She displays intellectual vision. In Eve, we find the desire to seek truth and understanding, and we find the ability to identify sources of wisdom, a skill we should all seek. Enlightenment is the immediate and evolving result of Eve and Adam’s rebellion, and though the results also include toil and pain, Eve initially and ultimately found the choice worth it. 

The first result of the wisdom gained by Eve and Adam in Genesis 2 is an awareness of their nakedness and a desire and creation of clothing. Clothing is the first tangible part of civil society that finds an explanation in the genesis text. Why? I think it is a good explanation of how different kinds of wisdom, acquired in stages, creates the conditions for which humans desire certain elements of society–clothing being just one example. These stages I think very roughly correspond to Freud’s concept of an ID, Ego, and Superego. 

First comes self-awareness. Adam and Eve “knew that they were naked.” Second comes awareness of others. When God asks Adam where he is, he says that he “heard the sound of you in the garden.” Third, the result of self-awareness combined with awareness of others results in shame or fear. The absence of either of the first two conditions precludes the third. And this is true of course today. If you’re in your own home, you might shed some or all of your clothes because you are not aware of anyone watching you and you feel no shame. If you don’t know that your fly is down, you feel no shame either because you lack self awareness. But when you gain both self awareness and awareness of others–you realize that you are being watched by a nosy neighbor or you realize in public that your fly is down–shame motivates action. 

Shame is not the only result of combined self awareness and awareness of others. Awareness of your means and a need in the world can motivate charitable donations or acts of service. Cain’s awareness of the unacceptableness of his offering to the Lord combined with his awareness of Abel’s acceptable sacrifice motivated him to rise up in violence. But the motivation of human action, especially action in civilized society that otherwise wouldn’t be necessary is well examined with the help of the Genesis creation story. And that analysis is thanks to Eve. 

Some Sources and Miscellaneous Stuff

 I found the story of Cain particularly insightful on how to deal with sin. This week's Episode of Beyond the Block also had a take that gave me a lot to think about. Brother Jones talked about a possible reading of Genesis 4 in which Cain represents white people, who led people of color literally into a field and committed heinous violence against them. Their progenitors continue to shirk responsibility for this similarly to Cain who asks of God "Am I my brother's Keeper?" 

Fascinating tidbit from reading a modern translation. The beginning of Genesis 4:8 in the KJV reads "And Cain talked with Abel his brother:" but the Hebrew this is translated from isn't grammatically correct. the word translated "talked" is more like "said" a transitive verb which requires something there that Cain said. The Masoretic text that the KJV is referencing doesn't include anything, but the Septuigint and the Vulgate do include what Cain says, and since the Septuigint translators likely had access to older texts than the Masoretic, it is most likely that this addition is correct--plus it corrects the incorrect grammar. So the NRSV reads, "Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out to the field.”"

I spent my Sunday morning identifying how the Moses account is different from Genesis. The Book of Moses seems to be trying to fill the gaps and harmonize the contradictions in the Biblical text. One aspect of that I found fascinating is in Moses 5 where it appears as if Cain is maybe not the firstborn of Adam and Eve! Read this chapter carefully and let me know what you think. Is it just a really non-linear story or are there several generations of Eve's children before Cain is born? If there are other generations, this harmonizes the Biblical contradiction of having Cain settle in Nod with a wife when there are no other people from which to take a wife. 

*The commandment to “multiply and replenish the earth” is included in Genesis 1 which is widely thought to be separated from Genesis 2-4 by centuries and greatly different authors. Interestingly, in LDS scripture (Moses 3) seems to identify Genesis 1 as a “spiritual creation,” likely to make it fit with Genesis 2 with which many of the details conflict. If this is the case, then we have no scriptural evidence that Adam and Eve were commanded to multiply and replenish the earth after they entered mortality.