Eve and Adam's need for a "fit" helper

[Continued from "The Garden of Eden: The Original Society of Adam and Eve"]

Now, I do not mean to overly emphasize the point of Eve’s punishment. For Eve is a very important part of this Genesis story. Was she tempted by Satan? Yes. Did she convince Adam to eat of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? Well, yes, but this all leaves out a very important part of Eve’s role in the Creation. In Genesis 2:18, the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” From here, God brings all the creatures of the Earth to Adam so that he may name them and that one may be his helper, but none would suffice. Genesis 2:20 states that “for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.” Enter Eve. God put Adam to sleep, and “while he slept took one of his ribs” (Genesis 2:21) and “the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into women” (Genesis 2:22). From man’s rib God make woman. But why did God not make woman from the earth as God had made man? Man was made from the dust of the ground and filled with life from the breath of God, and then man was good. But woman is derived from what was already said to be good. What does it mean that no creature made from the ground was a helper fit for man (Genesis 2:19-20)? Even Adam, made from the ground was not good enough and needed a helper. But woman is not made from the ground, but from a rib of Adam, God’s hand on earth. Surely there must be something good here.

Amy and Leon Kass, in their book Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar, raise another interesting question of woman’s creation. Not only was she not made from the ground, but she was made from a rib of Adam specifically. They write, “What does it mean that she comes from a rib, from a place close to the heart?” This seems to be a very important question. Yes Eve was made from Adam and he says that “this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23), but not just any bone. The purpose of the ribs are to protect the heart and the lungs, as they are vital organs directly related to life. God made Adam and “put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it,” (Genesis 2:15), but what about Eve? Of the creation of Eve, we know that she was made of the bone of Adam, specifically a rib, and that she was a fit helper for him where none else were. Here, Amy and Leon Kass ask another good question, “Why might God have seen fit to remedy the problem of Man’s aloneness by sending him a counter-part, an “other”?” Though here, the Kasses use the term “Counter-Part,” as opposed to helper. It seems important that woman was created to complete man. That no other creature made from the ground was fit, but that another must be created from the “good” that was man and the world, before sin.