The person of Eve, who is described as the necessary helpmate of the man Adam, since his existence is “not good” without her (Gen 2:18), comes, not from the earth but from Adam himself: in the “saga” of the rib there is expressed the intimate relationship between man and woman in which, for the first time, humanity achieves its fullness.
It is there that the mandate given to humanity at its creation is revealed – to find fulfillment in the oneness of man and wife. In like manner, Genesis 1:27 had already depicted humanity in its likeness to God as being from the beginning male and female, and had mysteriously linked this likeness to their interrelationship. Granted, the text also permits the ambivalence of the interrelationship to become apparent.
The woman can become a temptation for the man, but, at the same time, she is the mother of all the living and derives her name from this fact. It seems significant to me that this name is given her in Genesis 3:20, after the fall into sin and after God has pronounced his judgment, and that the woman’s unimpaired dignity and greatness are thus revealed. She guards the secret of life, which is the adversary of death. She who offered the fruit that meant death, whose role is mysteriously akin to death, is nevertheless the keeper of the seal of life and the antithesis of death. The woman, who has the key to life, comes thus into intimate contact with the mystery of being, the Living God, from whom ultimately all life comes and who is therefore called Life, the Living God.
See: Daughter Zion, pp. 16-17
