In Genesis 2:23, Adam says that the woman will be called “Ishah” because she was taken out of “Ish.” But this was not her personal name. It was the designation of a gender like our English “man” and “woman.” Eve’s origin was different than Adams’s. MacArthur observes, “Eve wasn’t made out of dust like Adam, but carefully designed from living flesh and bone. Adam was refined dirt; Eve was a glorious refinement of humanity itself. She was a special gift to Adam. She was the necessary partner who finally made his existence complete—and whose own existence finally signaled the completion of all creation.”[1] Some older commentators might relegate Eve’s creation as something less than that of Adam’s. But the final product proves that is wrong. Caverno explains, “The personality of Eve is as complete as that of Adam. She is a rational and accountable creature, as Adam is. In primitive intellectual and moral transactions, she has shares equality with Adam, and is equally involved in their results.”[2]
Adam gives her a personal name in Genesis 3:20. It tells us, “The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.” This one verse in the Bible stands to inform two major issues in the world today. Abortion is the first. Ryken observes, “The greatest curse that a woman could know was to have a barren womb. God was seen to have a significant role in the conception of the child. The psalmist exclaims that God has known David ‘from the womb.’ And a wayward or sinful woman might be punished by having God ‘close her womb.’ Beauty was cherished, but fecundity was valued more over time. In fact, even Paul notes that women are saved by childbearing (Gal 4:26)—a statement interpreted in various ways over the years.”[3] But, barrenness is not always a curse today. In 1973, following the lead of the USSR and the United Kingdom, the United States passed legislation that gave a woman the right to an abortion. The lawmakers did not base that decision on the consideration of the rights of the unborn, but on the rights of the woman. This ignores the rights of the unborn women. We can estimate that since 1973 more than 64 million abortions have been performed in our country alone. Since the Bible states that human life is sacred, and we live in a society that quite calmly destroys fifteen million unborn children, we need to be addressing the abortion question immediately and with grave concern.” Feinberg says, “Hence, as Christians we must speak to these topics lest we find out too late, as in the case of abortion, that a morality foreign to Scripture has not only won the day but has even been enacted as the law of the land.”[4] Thank God that our conservative Supreme Court has reversed Roe V Wade this year.
The other issue involved in Eve being “mother of all the living” is racism. Some evolutionists today argue that God created, or that there evolved another race of humans unrelated to Eve in another part of the world. But Cann exposes this lie. “No shred of biblical evidence even hints at such a possibility, and the Human Genome project appears to have succeeded in establishing unimpeachable evidence for uniquely compatible DNA in all living humans.” If Eve is the mother of all mankind, which I believe she is, all races have descended from her. Of course, since the flood they have descended from the three sons of Noah who were her descendants. “Confirmation of all this comes from geneticists such as Rebecca Cann, whose extensive research led her to the astonishing conclusion that all humans living on the earth today descended from a common ancestor who lived somewhere in North Africa or the Middle East…”[5] Paul made it very clear to the Galatians that sexism is wrong, racism is wrong and any kind of social or economic distinction that could be made is just plain wrong. He says in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” There is no such thing as an inferior or superior race! Morey writes, “Man has dignity, worth, significance and meaning. He is not a ‘fluke’ of evolution. All people are ‘human’ because we all came from Adam and Eve. Racism is not true.”[6]
[1] MacArthur, John F., Jr. 2005. Twelve Extraordinary Women: How God Shaped Women of the Bible and What He Wants to Do with You. Nashville, TN: Nelson Books.
[2] Caverno, C. 1915. “Family.” In The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, edited by James Orr, John L. Nuelsen, Edgar Y. Mullins, and Morris O. Evans, 1–5:1095. Chicago: The Howard-Severance Company.
[3] Ryken, Leland, Jim Wilhoit, Tremper Longman, Colin Duriez, Douglas Penney, and Daniel G. Reid. 2000. In Dictionary of Biblical Imagery, electronic ed., 571. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
[4] Feinberg, John S., and Paul D. Feinberg. 1993. Ethics for a Brave New World. Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books.
[5] “The Sbjt Forum: Racism, Scripture, and History.” 2004. Southern Baptist Journal of Theology Volume 8 8, no. 2: 81–82.
[6] Morey, Robert A. 2004. The Encyclopedia of Practical Christianity. Las Vegas, NV: Christian Scholars Press.