EVE: The name of the first woman, according to the Book of Genesis, where her creation is described (ii. 18-24), introduced by the soliloquy of Yahweh-Elohim: "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will create for him a help as his counterpart." Then God orders the animals to pass before Adam in pairs for review, that he may realize his utter loneliness and crave for the companionship of his own kind. While Adam is in a trance, God takes one of his ribs (so Eng. versions) and from it forms the woman. It is thought by some that the word rendered "rib" means any independent, separable part of the body,—a meaning favored by the usage of the word as "annex" in I Kings vi. 5; Ezek. xli. 5-7. Be this as it may, the point of the story is that the woman is not created independently of the man, but from that which has been taken from him. In I Cor. xi. 8-9 Paul lays emphasis upon this. Originally created as one, destined for personal relation with God, later man becomes husband to the woman who proceeds out of him. "This is at last," he cries, beholding her, "bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh." Recognizing her kinship to him, he names her in contradistinction to himself as "man" (Hebr. ish), the "female man" (Hebr. isshah). The historian adds, that for this reason (namely that woman has been created out of and for man) man will forsake father and mother and cling to his wife and thus become one flesh with her. Since ish can be a contraction of issh (= insh), the possibility of an etymological connection between ish and isshah is not to be denied offhand (cf. Strack on Gen. ii. 23).

It is further said: (1) that Eve was tempted into disobedience and induced her husband to commit the same sin (Gen. iii. 1-7; cf. II Cor. xi. 3; I Tim. ii. 14); (2) that she was punished by the pains of childbirth and her dependence on her husband (Gen. iii. 16); (3) that Adam relying upon God's promise of the victorious seed, gave her the name Hawwah ("Life") as the "mother of all living" (Gen. iii. 20); (4) that she welcomed the birth of her first-born in happy surprise at the divine gift of grace with the words, "I have brought forth a man with the help of Yahweh" (Gen. iv. 1).

(W. VOLCK†. )