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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.
But it's not just the verb that links the two. Cain builds his city after killing his brother, shedding Abel's blood on the ground. Adam goes into deep sleep, not death, and his flesh is opened up. The first time flesh is opened is not with Abel but with Adam. There is no reference to blood, but there must have been.
There are key differences that highlight the differences of two cities. Cain kills his brother and founds his city on the blood of his brother; Adam’s bride is built from his own body, from a kind of self-sacrifice. Further, Cain built his city; but Adam’s bride is built by God. Eve is not a city, but she is the prototype of the city that Abraham looked forward to, the city whose builder and maker is God.
The clearest evidence for this civic interpretation of the creation of Eve comes from the end of the Bible, where the city-bride is revealed in a thoroughly Edenic passage. The city-bride is a new Eve, adorned for her Husband, the Lamb, and this means that the original creation of Eve anticipated the consummation.
posted by Peter J. Leithart on Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at 07:51 AM
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