The First Human (Or Rethinking Genesis 2)
Wilda Gafney’s A Women’s Lectionary for The Whole Church begins the Lenten Season by reflecting on Genesis 2. Here’s Gafney’s translation of Gen 2:7-9, 15-17, and 21-25.
The SOVEREIGN God crafted the human from the dust of the humus and breathed into its nostrils the breath of life, and the human became a living soul. And the SOVEREIGN God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there placed the human whom God had formed. Out of the ground the SOVEREIGN God made grow every tree pleasant to the sight and good for food, and the tree of life in the middle of the garden, along with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil….
The SOVEREIGN God took the human and settled it in the garden of Eden to till and tend it. Then the SOVEREIGN God commanded the human, “From every tree of the garden you may eat freely, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat from it you shall surely die”…
The SOVEREIGN God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the human, and it slept; then took one of its sides and closed up its place with flesh in place of it. And the SOVEREIGN God built the side that had been taken form the human into a woman and brought her to the human. Then the human said,
“This time, this one is bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh;
This one shall be called a woman,
For out of a man this one was taken.”
Therefore a man leaves his mother and father and clings to his woman, and they become one flesh. And they were, the two of them, naked, the man and his woman [or the woman and her man] and were not ashamed.
Gafney’s translation will surprise many English readers familiar with how this passage reads in, say, the KJV, NIV, ESV, NASB, or RSV. Those translations speak of “man” not “human” or “it”; and they speak of “ribs” not “sides.” Why does Gafney depart from these common English translation practices?
Gafney anticipates this question and addresses it directly in the readings’ “Text Notes.” She writes:
God’s creation of human in Genesis 2:7 uses a verb for crafting pottery. “The human,” ha’adam, is a specific distinct creation; later adam will refer to humanity as a whole and serve as the name of the first male human. The earth from which this first earthling was crafted is ha’adamah.
I use the pronoun “it,” lacking in Hebrew, for the first human that has within it what will be called woman, isshah, and man, ish. The earth-creature will be divided in half to generate woman and man. The word tzela in Genesis 2:22 means side and not rib, used for the sides of the ark and tabernacle in Exodus, sides of the temple in 1 Kings and Ezekiel, and hillsides in 2 Samuel. It is never translated as rib outside of the creation of woman story. In the LXX, pleuron also means side, generally in reference to the human body. There are no distinct words for “wife” and “husband” in Hebrew. The language for woman and man has not changed in the text.
Gafney adds to these notes in a corresponding “Preaching Prompt.” “The primordial human is a pluripotent that will be divided into equal halves to form two human persons yielding different theological implications than turning a man’s “rib” into a woman.”
For many of us, Gafney’s translation, textual notes, and preaching prompt spark theological paradigm shifts. Sola scriptura, indeed.
