It is clear that gender is incorporated
differently into the two creation accounts of Gen1:1-2:3 and Gen 2:4-24. In
their basic forms, these two accounts seem to differ significantly in standpoint.
The first account seems to consist of a very general, almost
"mythical" kind of overview of the creation of man and woman. As
readers, we are placed at a distance from the story. The text in this account
states only that "God created humankind in his image, in the image of God
he created them; male and female he created them" (Gen. 1:27 NRSV). Both
the male and female, thus, are likened to "the image of God." They
are, in other words, equal in how they relate to one another and how they
relate to God. "Without establishing relative rank or worth of the
genders," Susan Niditch notes of this verse in her commentary of Genesis
in the Women's Bible Commentary,
"the spinner of this creation tale indicates that humankind is found in
two varieties, the male and the female…" (30). We will find that this lack
of differentiation between male and female in this first account is the point
at which the two accounts diverge.
Unlike
the first account, the second account of creation is a closer, more detailed
narrative in which we "hear" the thoughts and reasoning of God as he
creates man and woman. Niditch refers to this as "an earthier style"
(30). Here, in Gen 2:7-25, God first creates man, and when he is unable to find
a suitable partner for man among all the creatures of his creation, he forms
woman from the rib of man. This account implicates roles for each gender, a
significant deviation from the first story. The male and female are not created
simply as two types of humans, as we saw in the first account, but are created
for different purposes, the man to "till and keep [the garden of
Eden]" and the woman to become a "helper" to the man (Gen 2:15,
2:18 NRSV). Indeed, she was not made from earth, but from the body of man himself
(Gen 2:23 NRSV).
In
order to further understand the complexities in comparing these two accounts, however,
it would perhaps be useful to examine the nature and the history of the texts
themselves. Why, in other words, do we find two accounts in Genesis of the
creation of humankind? Why, as we have seen, do they differ in how they depict
woman as she relates to man? These questions would serve as a valuable catalyst
for further study in fully understanding the woman of the first three chapters
of Genesis.
Works Cited
Niditch, Susan. "Genesis." The Women’s Bible Commentary. Eds. Carol
A Newsom, Sharon H. Ringe, and Jacqueline E. Lapsley. Louisville,
Ky.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2012. 27-45.
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