ICYMI — the acclaimed novelist and Pulitzer Prize winner Marilynne Robinson (Housekeeping, the Gilead novels, etc.) has written Reading Genesis, “a radiant, thrilling interpretation of the book of Genesis.” The book becomes available March 12th. Robinson treats it as she would a novel, with characters and plot.
(Curious about her decision to use the King James version1, but I know for many that because of the poetic language and all the “thee, thou, thy, and ye” it feels like the “real” bible. (A sort of apocryphal story among pastors, who have taken heat from congregants when they use other versions, is the elderly woman who accosts a pastor one Sunday after worship, saying, “If the King James Version was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.”) Anyway, eager to get my hands on Robinson’s book and her fresh, engaging take.
Okay, where were we?
In the Garden of Eden, Genesis 2:, Yahweh Elohim said, “It’s not good that ha-adam should be le-baddow (meaning alone, isolated, separate). I will make a suitable helper.” (I wonder at the translation of “suitable.” The Hebrew root word means “what is in front of, in sight of, opposite.” Might do some digging there.)
The word used for helper is ezer, and comes from a root meaning “assistance, succor.” (I had to go look up succor, so if like me you need help, it means “assistance in times of hardship or distress.”)
Then Yahweh Elohim formed out of the ground (ha-adamah) “every beast of the field and every bird of the air,” and so forth. Then ha-adam names the creatures, “the livestock and the birds of the air and every beast of the field.” Big job. Imagining that took a while.
But none of those creatures met that standard of being suitable. “For ha-adam a suitable helper was not found.”
Now comes the familiar story — Yahweh Elohim zaps ha-adam into a nice deep sleep for a spot of surgery (I am almost 100% certain Marilynne Robinson will have a much more elegant way of saying this), removes a rib, and from the rib, hey, presto, fashions a woman — an ishah because she is taken from an ish.
Ish is the Hebrew word for man, ishah the word for woman. This is the point where there is now “man” and “woman.” There was no ish in the verses before, only ha-adam. Now there is an ish and an ishah.
As in Genesis 1, there is a co-equal creation of both genders. As in Genesis 1, both “become” at the same time.
A pretty critical version of the story that has sadly been lost in translation.
I loved Gilead!