Eve As Archetype of City?
October 19, 2007 - 1:58pm by ThomasPete Lienhart makes the astute (or perplexing) observation that Eve is built like a city:
Even before Cain, there is a hint --- only a hint, but a hint --- of a better city to come. It is not good for man to be alone, Yahweh says of Adam, and then takes a rib from Adam's side and makes that rib into a woman.
Eve is not a city. But Eve is the prototype of a different sort of city, a bridal city. The hint is in the strange verb that Genesis 2:22 uses. Yahweh doesn't make or form Eve from the rib of Adam, but ''builds'' the woman. Eve is the first thing built in the Bible, and the second thing to be built is Cain's city --- that's the next use of that verb.
As a student of literature I appreciate the delving into the wordplay of Scripture. But something about this interpretation makes me feel like it is a stretch, though I cannot put my finger on it. Is there a point where pushing the fine toothed comb of linguistic studies goes too far?
Comments
In Semitic idiom, the verb bnh (to build) does not always have the connotations it does in English of constructing something, usually a structure of sorts. Rather, it can also mean to take something small and cause it to grow or develop into something larger. So, for example, a son is a 'built one' in Hebrew, because the Hebrew for son (ben) is derived from the verb bnh. I am sorry, but atleast from that paragraph, I find this to be a poor read of the Old Testament without any foundation in etymology or any precedent in the history of interpretation that I am aware of.
Actually there's quite a bit of precedent in earlier hermeneutics, given the connection between Eve and the eschatological city. Among Reformed interpreters, check out Zanchi's Of the Spiritual Marriage Between Christ and the Church, in particular, Chapter 1.