Chavah, Zoë, Eve, Life

I have written so often of Adam and Ish, claiming a portion of these domains for women. So when I write of Eve, I will not exclude men. Men are Life too, investing in the next generation, caring and nurturing. I know it! Rashi knew it, and when the Hebrew of Gen. 3:16 says,

הַרְבָּה אַרְבֶּה עִצְּבוֹנֵךְ

I will increase, yes increase your sorrow

Rashi wrote,

This refers to the pain of child rearing.

Men and women, both, rear children, invest, divest, laugh and weep over their children. So for me, Adam and Eve are the prototypical parents, and metaphorically between the two of them, represent mortality and life, earth and sky, fate and hope, all those pushes and pulls of life. But mortality and life are not meted out one for men and the other for women, not at all! Women die and men give life. So now back to the story, Gen. 3:20-24,

20 καὶ ἐκάλεσεν Αδαμ τὸ ὄνομα τῆς γυναικὸς αὐτοῦ Ζωή,
ὅτι αὕτη μήτηρ πάντων τῶν ζώντων.
21 Καὶ ἐποίησεν κύριος ὁ θεὸς τῷ Αδαμ καὶ τῇ γυναικὶ αὐτοῦ χιτῶνας δερματίνους
καὶ ἐνέδυσεν αὐτούς. –
22 καὶ εἶπεν ὁ θεός Ἰδοὺ Αδαμ γέγονεν ὡς εἷς ἐξ ἡμῶν τοῦ γινώσκειν καλὸν καὶ πονηρόν,
καὶ νῦν μήποτε ἐκτείνῃ τὴν χεῖρα καὶ λάβῃ τοῦ ξύλου τῆς ζωῆς
καὶ φάγῃ καὶ ζήσεται εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα.
23 καὶ ἐξαπέστειλεν αὐτὸν κύριος ὁ θεὸς ἐκ τοῦ παραδείσου τῆς τρυφῆς ἐργάζεσθαι τὴν γῆν,
ἐξ ἧς ἐλήμφθη.
24 καὶ ἐξέβαλεν τὸν Αδαμ
καὶ κατῴκισεν αὐτὸν ἀπέναντι τοῦ παραδείσου τῆς τρυφῆς
καὶ ἔταξεν τὰ χερουβιμ
καὶ τὴν φλογίνην ῥομφαίαν τὴν στρεφομένην
φυλάσσειν τὴν ὁδὸν τοῦ ξύλου τῆς ζωῆς.

And Mortal called the name of his wife Life,
because she was the mother of all living.
21 And the Lord God made for Mortal and his partner garments of skin [of dead animals],
and clothed them.
22 And God said, Behold, Mortal is become as one of us [Immortal], to know good and evil,
and now lest at any time he stretch forth his hand, and take of the tree of Life
and eat, and [so] he shall live forever– [like us Immortals]
23 So the Lord God sent Mortal forth out of the garden of Delight to cultivate the [decaying and mortal] earth
out of which he was taken.
24 And God cast out Mortal out and caused him to dwell outside the garden of Delight,
and stationed the cherubs
and the fiery sword that turns about to guard the way of the tree of Life [from Mortal and Life.]

And here is the beginning of chapter 4,

Αδαμ δὲ ἔγνω Ευαν τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ,
καὶ συλλαβοῦσα ἔτεκεν τὸν Καιν
καὶ εἶπεν Ἐκτησάμην ἄνθρωπον διὰ τοῦ θεοῦ.

And Adam [Mortal] knew Eve [Life] his woman
and she brought together and gave birth to Cain
and she said, “I have created a [another] Mortal with [the help of] God [the Immortal.]

In fact, Adam, the mortal, took Life with him, out of the garden, and Mortal and Life made another Life together with the help of the Immortal.