I awoke outside the Walls of Eden.
What have I done to get here?
Why was Father so angry?
What have I done to deserve this?
Where is my missing half?
And is she my equal, or my helper?

The Old Testament Book of Genesis gives two differing creation accounts and ascribes
two different level of status to women right at the start. This fact should be a
theological issue for anyone reading Genesis in either the Hebrew or Christian Bibles. There is a way out of these contradictions, but it requires the idea of two separate creation events. Let’s take a look.

In the first account, Elohim (God) makes the world in six days, resting on the seventh. In
succession, God said that there shall be vegetation and then living creatures, and it was
so.

“Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So Elohim created mankind in his own image,
in the image of Elohim He created them;
male and female He created them.

Elohim blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.'”

Genesis 1:26-28

This is significant to our reading of the story; in this account, humans, male and female, are created at the same time.

However, jumping ahead a few verses, we get a different narrative.

Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being

Genesis 2:7

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.
But for the man, no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.”

That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.

The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.’

Genesis 2:15-25

So, were the first man and woman created in the image of Elohim, after all living things? Or was Adam created alone, before all other living things, so that when other life forms were created, and that they were pleasant to look at and good for food, Adam had Eve gifted as a subservient help-mate?

This is a question that puzzled Rabbis, and they came up with a working explanation, one based in Sumerian mythology.

I once had a friend who declared “there are no plot holes, just stories left to be told”.

In Judaism, in the Talmud, this is called Midrash. It’s the narrative art of filling in plot holes, and Rabbis have had centuries to do this. So here’s the work around:

In the First creation, Adam was made with an equal: Lilith. However, she refused to be sexually subservient to him, since they were equals. Lilith was banished from the Garden of Eden, and morphed into something truly monstrous, a demon who tempted men and killed babies.

So perhaps the story told so far, after Lilith’s banishment, could be paraphrased along
the following lines.

I am alone.
Where is my missing half?
We were created at the same time.
Where is she now?

Fun fact: the movie “the Exorcist” gets all of this so very wrong in making Pazuzu an evil entity. In Sumerian mythology and in practiced faith, Pazuzu was an entity invoked to repulse Lilith and her army of demons. Pazuzu, like Gargoyles in later Christian iconography, may not have been pretty, but he wasn’t supposed to be; he was there to frighten off baby killing spirits.

With Adam now being alone (‘which was not good’),the Elohim was prompted to reset creation, and in this Second creation He made Ḥawwāh (literally ‘the source of life’), who we call Eve, out of Adam’s rib.

Hence the story has progressed.

I see her.
I am no longer alone.
I have found peace.

Two creation narratives, with two implications for the intrinsic roles of the sexes.

No wonder the Abrahamic faiths have created so many gender issues.

For me, the real question is:

Who did Adam really love?

The woman who was his equal, forged in the image of the divine, or the slave, pulled from his side?

Only the Elohim knows.