For other uses of Adam or Eve, see Adam (disambiguation) and Eve (disambiguation). For the orchid species commonly called Adam and Eve, see Aplectrum hyemale. According to the Book of Genesis in Judaism's Torah, the Christian Bible and Islam's Qur'an, Adam was the first man created by God. At Genesis 1:27 Adam's female mate is said to have been created with Adam, and at Genesis 2:21-22 Adam's wife is named as Eve (or Chava-חוה) and was created from his rib. Hence, Eve has, in modern times, been thought of as the first woman, according to these texts, though classical traditions recorded in the Midrash make her the second.. The Qur'an tells the story of Adam and Eve mainly in 2:30-39, 7:11-25, 15:26-44, 17:61-65, 20:115-124, 38:71-85., and the Book of Genesis tells the story at chapters 2-3. Contents 1 Interpretation of names 2 The life of Adam (and Eve) 2.1 Adam's creation 2.2 The fall of Satan 2.3 Eve's creation 2.4 Traditions regarding Adam and other wives 2.5 The fall of Man 2.6 East of Eden 3 Historicity 3.1 Ancestry and evolutionary biology 3.2 The Sumerian connection 4 Cultural influence 5 References 6 See also 7 External links Interpretation of names Adam—אָדָם in Standard Hebrew, ʾĀḏām in Tiberian Hebrew, آدم (ʾĀdam) in Arabic, አዳም ('Adam) in Geez (Ethiopic), and Adamus in Latin — translates literally as red earth. In the ancient cultures of the fertile crescent, people were thought to have been created from the earth itself, and so the term red earth was used to refer to mankind generally. Indeed Adam, in the Kazakh language means human, and Adamshylyk is mankind, and in most other turkic languages Adam also means man or human. However, in the Sibylline Oracles, the name Adam is explained as a notaricon composed of the initials of the four directions; anatole (east), dusis (west), arktos (north), and mesembria (south). The Jews had their own acrostic interpretation of the name Adam. In the 2nd century CE, Rabbi Yohanan used the Greek technique of notarichon to explain the name אָדָם as the initials of the words afer, dam, and marah, being dust, blood, and gall. Eve—חַוָּה (Ḥavva) in Standard Hebrew, Ḥawwāh in Tiberian Hebrew, حواء (Ḥawwāʾ) in Arabic, ሕይዋን (Hiywan) in Geez, and Eva/Eua or Geva in Latin — means simply living one, i.e. Life. Hence these names are literal descriptions of the purported mother of humanity, and of a purported founder of mankind. The life of Adam (and Eve) Adam's creation Traditional woodblock print portraying Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden with many of the "lower creatures." Michelangelo's Adam Adam is said, in the torah, to have been created from the dust of the earth, and in the Talmud (Tractate Sanhedrin 38b) is, more specifically, described as having initially been a golem (a bit like a zombie slave) kneaded together from mud. The important early Islamic commentator Tabari adds a number of details, based on claimed hadith as well as Jewish traditions (so-called isra'iliyyat). Tabari records that when it came time to create Adam, God sent Gabriel, then Michael, to fetch clay from the earth; but the earth complained, saying I take refuge in God from you, if you have come to diminish or deform me, so the angels returned empty-handed. Tabari goes on to state that God responded by sending the Angel of Death, who took clay from all regions, hence providing an explanation for the variety of appearances of the different races of mankind. In the torah, God is initially described, at Genesis 1:26, as breathing the breath of life into the nostrils of the first man, and while this is usually interpreted in Judao-Christian circles as having been fairly immediate, according to Tabari's account, Adam remained a dry body for 40 days, then gradually came to life from the head downwards, sneezing when he had finished coming to life, saying All praise be to God, the Lord of all beings. Having been created, Adam, the first man, is described as having been given dominion over all the lower creatures, which he proceeds to name. As one of the people to whom God is said to have spoken to directly, Adam is seen as a prophet in Islam. The fall of Satan At this point, Adam takes a prominent role in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic, traditions concerning the fall of Satan, which is not recorded in the torah, though is present in the historically important Book of Enoch. In these, when God announces his intention of creating Adam, some of the angels express dismay, asking why he would create a being that would do evil. Teaching Adam the names reassures the angels as to Adam's abilities, though commentators dispute which particular names were involved; various theories say they were the names of all things animate and inanimate, the names of the angels, or the names of his own descendants. When God orders the angels to bow to Adam one of those present, Satan (Iblis in Islam, regarded as a jinn rather than an angel), refuses due to his pride, and is summarily banished from the heavens. Liberal movements within Islam have viewed God's commanding the angels to bow before Adam as an exaltation of humanity, and as a means of supporting human rights. More extended versions of the fall of Satan exist in which he leads a divine war, which, while in works such as the Book of Enoch is recorded as being in heaven after Satan turns away from God, by works such as that of Tabari, and the Shia commentator al-Qummi, is explained as being heaven sent against the jinn, who had angered God by sin and fighting. In such versions where Satan leads the battle on God's behalf, rather than his own, it is the pride and conceit resulting from his victory which results in his expulsion, since pride is here seen as a sin. Islamic traditions further record that, in vengeful anger, Iblis promises God that he will lead as many humans astray as he can, to which God replies that it is the choice of humans - those who desire to will follow Satan, while those who desire to will follow God. Eve's creation At this point, in the torah, Yahweh is described as causing a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and removing part of his body, usually interpreted as a rib (though a more literal translation is non-specific). From this body part, Eve is subsequently created, as a companion to alleviate Adam's loneliness, and while Eve, is not mentioned by name in the Qur'an, she is nevertheless referred to as Adam's spouse, and Islamic tradition refers to her by an etymologically similar name - Hawwa. In fact, although her creation is not recounted in the Qur'an, Tabari recounts the biblical tale of her creation, stating that she was named because she was created from a living thing (her name means living). The torah gives an etymology for woman, or rather the Hebrew equivalent (ish-shah), stating that she should be called woman since she was taken out of man (ish in hebrew). The etymology is regarded as implausible by most semitic linguists. Traditions regarding Adam and other wives Lilith (1892), by John Collier In Genesis, there are two separate accounts of creation, one at Genesis 1-2:3 and another after Genesis 2:4. While creationists and many other religious people believe these to be written by the same author to represent two different perspectives, most biblical scholars support the documentary hypothesis, which claims each account derived from separate source texts that were later combined, with Eve's name and story being present only in the Yahwist text. Nevertheless, in ancient times, the presence of two distinct accounts was noted, and regarded with some curiosity. The first account says male and female [God] created them, which was viewed to imply simultaneous creation, whereas the second account states that God created Eve from Adam's rib because Adam was lonely. Consequently, to resolve the accounts, rabbis suggested that Eve and the woman of the first account were two separate individuals. Preserved in the Midrash, and the mediaeval Alphabet of Ben Sira, this tradition held that the first woman refused to take the submissive position to Adam in sex, and eventually fled from him, consequently leaving him lonely. This first woman was identified in the Midrash as Lilith, a figure elsewhere described as a night demon. In a context separate to Adam, at Isaiah 34:14 Lilith is explicitely mentioned by name, though often not appearing in translations - her name (liyliyth in the Masoretic text) is replaced by the phrase screech owl in the KJV. In the Talmud, Adam is said to have separated from Eve for 130 years, during which time his ejaculations gave rise to ghouls, and demons. Elsewhere in the Talmud, Lilith is identified as the mother of these creatures. The demons were said to prey on newborn males before they had been circumcised, and so a tradition arose in which a protective amulet was placed around the neck of newborns. Traditions in the Midrash concerning Lilith, and her sexual appetite, are believed ultimately to derive from Sumerian mythology concerning the demon ki-sikil-lil-la-ke, via an intermediate akkadian folk etymology interpreting the lil-la-ke portion of the name as a corruption of lîlîtu, literally meaning female night demon. The Alphabet of Ben Sira goes further and identifies a third wife, created after lilith deserted Adam, but before Eve. This unnamed wife was purportedly made in the same way as Adam, from the "dust of the earth", but the sight of her being created proved too much for Adam to take and he refused to go near her. It is also said that she was created from nothing at all, and that God created into being a skeleton, then organs, and then flesh. The midrash tells that Adam saw her as "full of blood and secretions," suggesting that he may have actually witnessed her creation and was horrified at seeing a body from the inside out. Ben Sira does not record this wife's fate. She was never named, and it assumed that she was allowed to leave the Garden a perpetual virgin, or was ultimately destroyed by God in favor of Eve, who was created when Adam was asleep and oblivous. The fall of Man Main article Domenichino's portrayal of Genesis 3:12: "The woman whom thou gavest [to be] with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat" (1623–1625). The main story concerning Adam is traditionally regarded as extremely important, religiously. This recounts how Adam and Eve are placed in the Garden of Eden, and allowed to cultivate, and enjoy, its fruit, as well as to live innocently. However, there was one tree they were explicitely forbidden from eating - the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil - a tree which is otherwise unidentified, but it has usually been interpreted as a fig tree or as an apple tree. The torah then records that a serpent, a creature described by the torah as at that point having four legs, approached Eve and persuaded her to eat the forbidden fruit, saying you won't die. In the torah, Eve persuades Adam, and so, having eaten the fruit, they both become disturbed by their nudity, making aprons of fig leaves to cover themselves. The torah goes on to state that God personally questions them about this, and on discovering they have disobeyed, expells them from Eden before they can access the tree of life, which grants immortality, and curses the serpent to lose its legs so that it has to crawl, and to have mutual hatred for mankind. In Later traditions, including those of Tabari, interpreted the serpent as a disguised Satan, though Gnostic accounts turned this on its head, and the serpent was seen as the hero, particularly to Ophites, who was trying to help the couple gain knowledge to defeat an evil Yahweh, whom the Gnostics saw as the demiurge. It should be noted here, that both Lilith and the Second Wife are free from any curse of the Tree of Knowledge, they left long before the event occured. The torah states that Adam and Eve were expelled to the East, and at the eastern entrance of the garden, God placed Cherubim, and a flaming sword, which turned every way. Eastern Orthodox tradition says that this sword was removed once Jesus was born, in order for it to be possible for humanity to return to Paradise. Al-Qummi records the opinion that Eden was not entirely earthly, and so, having been sent to earth, Adam and Eve first arrived at mountain peaks outside Mecca; Adam on Safa, and Eve on Marwa. In this Islamic tradition, Adam remained weeping for 40 days, until he repented, at which point God rewarded him by sending down the Kaaba, and teaching him the hajj. Other Islamic traditions hold that Adam was moved to Sri Lanka, as the next best thing to Eden, and, viewing Adam as having been a giant, human size having shrunking drastically before the great flood, Adam's Peak is said to contain his giant footprint. East of Eden Adam and Eve, by Albrecht Dürer (1507). Genesis does not tell for how long Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden, but the Book of Jubilees states that they were removed from the garden on the new moon of the fourth month of the 8th year after creation (Jubilees 3:33); traditional Jewish sources assert that it was less than a day. Shortly after their expulsion, Eve brought forth her first-born child, and therafter their second; Cain and Abel respectively. The Qur'an also describes the two sons of Adam (named Qabil and Habil in Islamic tradition, but not mentioned by name in the Qur'an) that correspond to Cain and Abel. After Cain kills Abel, and is cursed to wander, Adam and Eve conceive a third child, named Seth, who, with Cain, gives rise to the two family lines of the Generations of Adam. Only three of Adam's children (Cain, Abel, and Seth) are explicitely named in Genesis, though it does state that there were other sons and daughters as well (Genesis 5:4). In Jubilees, two daughters are named - Azûrâ being the first, and Awân, who is born after Seth, Cain, Abel, nine other sons, and Azûrâ. Jubilees goes on to state that Cain later marries Awân and Seth marries Azûrâ, thus, despite the incest, accounting for their descendants. However, according to Genesis Rabba, and other later sources, either Cain had a twin sister, and Abel had two twin sisters, or Cain had a twin sister named Lebuda, and Abel a twin sister named Qelimath. In Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, Cain's twin sister is named Luluwa, and Abel's twin sister is named Aklia. Other pseudepigrapha give further details of their life outside of Eden, in particular, the Life of Adam and Eve (also known as the Apocalypse of Moses) consisting entirely of a description of their life outside Eden. As the first man, Adam posed a significant figure to attribute prophecy and wisdom to. The Gnostics created an esoteric tract, the Apocalypse of Adam, purportedly containing the enlightenment Adam received. While the Gnostics used texts as teaching devices, rather than viewing them to be literal accounts genuinely written by early patriarchs, the converse was true of what became official Christianity. The Testament of Adam represents a mainstream attempt to produce a faked ancient prophecy, of events that had supposedly already occurred by the time it was published. According to the bible, Adam finally died at the age of 930 years, the traditional Jewish view being he and Eve are currently buried in the Cave of Machpelah, in Hebron. Historicity Historically, creationists of the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions, from Nennius to William Whiston, held that Adam and Eve were historical figures. Many gave credence to the works of James Ussher, who viewed them to have lived approximately 6,000, basing their calculations on the Genealogies of Genesis and Table of Nations. With the advent of archaeological discoveries, the theory of evolution, and genetic science the traditional view came to be challenged, and the majority of scholars, as well as many large mainstream religious denominations, today reject the historicity of Adam and Eve. Nevertheless, creationist organizations such as Answers in Genesis and the Institute for Creation Research continue to view them as historical individuals. Ancestry and evolutionary biology A theory of a single male and female human ancestor is almost completely contradictory to most modern synthesis of the theory of evolution, which posits that humans evolved from ape-like creatures, gradually. Nevertheless, in modern genetic studies a female individual has been identified who was the female ancester of every single person alive today. Detected via the DNA of mitochondria, which are only inherited matrilineally, she has become named Mitochondrial Eve, after the biblical figure. Similarly, a single male ancestor has been identified for all humans that are now living, via the Y chromosome, which is only passed patrilineally. Hence this male is known as Y-chromosomal Adam after the Adam of the bible. Based on DNA analysis of living ethnic groups, these two individuals are believed to have lived in Africa rather than the east of Arabia. Also, judging from Molecular clock and Genetic marker studies, Y-chromosomal Adam has been dated to having lived some 60,000 and 90,000 years ago, some time substantially before the date suggested for the biblical Adam to have according to Ussher and young earth creationists. Similarly Mitochondrial Eve is dated much earlier, though to about 150,000 years ago, at least 60,000 years preceeding Y-chromosomal Adam. While this may appear confusing, and seem in part to support the biblical idea of a single pair of ancestors (though living 60,000 years apart), the appearance that there were initially just two individuals is in fact an illusion. The matrilinial line of each modern individual will converge with that of another each time a pair of ancestral sisters is reached. However, at no point can the matrilinial lines ever diverge, as you progress further back in time, since at no point were there two biological mothers of a single individual. Hence it is inevitable that all lines will at some point contain the same individual. Similar logic applies for the human patrilinial line, and for patrilinial and matrilinial lines for each animal, for example of ants. While the significance of these two individuals is illusory, genetic studies have indicated the presence of a population bottleneck about 70,000 years ago, indicating at that time there were only a few thousand (possibly only 1000) individuals. However, rather than turn to the bible, taking the explanation of descent from a single human pair, most scientists turn to more scientific theories, predominantly the Toba catastrophe theory. In this, prior to the event there were a much greater number of individuals, but when an extremely large volcano erupted at Toba, the result was an increase in global temperature sufficient to cause environmental change, leading to the reduction of human population. The Sumerian connection Adam and Eve, by English poet and painter William Blake (1808). Tales involving Enki and Ninhursag in Sumerian mythology, and Adapa in later mythology, has been put forward by several scholars as a likely candidate for large parts of the story of Adam and Eve, most controversially by David Rohl in 2005, but also by established scholars of Sumeria such as Kramer, in 1981. In the Sumerian myth, Ninhursag creates a beautiful garden full of lush vegetation and fruit trees called Edinu, a name remarkably similar to Eden. Ninhursag creates the garden for herself, but fearing for its protection while she is away, charges Enki, her lover, with the responsibility to control wild animals, and tend the garden. Enki, however, becomes curious, and desires to know about the plants. His assistant selects several plants, offering them to Enki. This enranges Nisnhursag, and she curses Enki with death. As a result of the curse, Enki becomes increasingly ill, feeling pain in eight parts of his body, one of which is his rib. The other gods realise he is dying and so persuade Ninhursag to relent. In response Ninhursag creates a new goddess named Ninti, a name which translates both as Lady of Living and Lady of the Rib, to cure the sickness. One of Ninhursag's other names was Nintu, and most scholars hence view the story of Ninti as deriving from a pun on her name, arising after Nintu became corrupted to Ninti. Ninhursag has the epithet mother of all offspring, and hence holds the same position as Eve - mother of all living (Genesis 3:29). Another significant connection is in the name of Ninti, as Eve's name means living, and Eve is produced from Adam's rib. If one story were derived from the other, because the pun with rib is present only in Sumerian, linguistic criticism places the Sumerian as the more original account. Enki himself was both the lover of Ninhursag, and the first leader on earth, and both he and Ninhursag were created by the chief god, Enlil, hence having parallels with Adam in addition to the story of the rib, and his charge over the garden. Mankind is additionally described as being fashioned from clay in Sumerian myth, though by the Babylonian era, the clay was said to have had the blood of an unspecified god, who was murdered, mixed with it. This supernatural importance of blood is not present in Sumerian myth, but is recorded in certain sections of the torah, for example Leviticus records that the life is in the blood. While the Sumerian/Babylonian myth involves multiple deities in the creation of man, in the monotheist account in the torah, this is not possible. Knowledge generally was viewed in Sumerian myth as deriving from trees. This is explicitely present in a myth of Inanna and Utu, explaining how Inanna, goddess of lust, initially gained knowledge about sex by descending to earth and eating from various plants and trees, in particular Cedars. The merging of this motif, with that of forbidden fruit in the story of Enki and Ninhursag, to produce that of genesis, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, has been suggested by scholars of ancient near eastern mythology, such as Leick. By the Babylonian era, Enki had become viewed as more removed from humanity, and his place as the first leader of man was taken by an individual named Adapa, who was a human, but created by a god. One 14th century BC tablet in fact refers to Adapa as the seed of mankind. One myth recounts that Adapa broke the wings of the south wind in anger at being disturbed fishing, and so was called to the heavens to answer for doing so. Once there, he was warned not to touch the food, in case it had been poisoned in revenge, but the food and drink of immortality were set before him, and thus in gaining the warning, he lost out on immortality. The god which offered the food and drink of immortality was the wily serpent-god Ningishzida. While in the biblical account it is knowledge which the serpent offers, what the serpent actually remarks to Eve is that she shall not die. The food and drink of the gods originated from the earth, and hence somewhere lay the source of the food and drink of immortality, a Tree of Life. Nevertheless, in the biblical account, the food is consumed, not rejected, and the couple are punished for it by being expelled from the garden. Thus any derivation of the biblical account from Sumerian and Babylonian ones involves the confusion of the tale of Adapa and the south wind and that of Enki in the garden. Such a conflation of these two separate tales may have been influenced by a story preserved in the prologue of Gilgamesh, Enkidu and the Underworld. In this, Inanna, transplants the huluppu tree from the Euphrates to her own garden, but a wicked serpent made its nest amongst the roots of the tree, and could not be charmed. This tale connects the serpent to the garden, as well as, due to the presence of Inanna, holding knowledge coming from trees, and the theme of lust. Removing the part about Enki's rib from the story, and moving it to the start, would have allowed the failure to gain immortality being seen as punishment for eating the fruit, rather than a failure to obtain a gift. Cultural influence When it was cleaned, Tommaso Masaccio's fresco of The Expulsion (1426–1427) lost the added fig leaves. Early Renaissance artists used the theme of Adam and Eve as a way to represent female and male nudes in a then morally acceptable way. Later, the nudity was objected to by powerful, more prudent, elements, and a fig leaf was added to the older pictures, and sculpture, covering their genitals. The choice of the fig was down to mediterranian traditions identifying the unnamed Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as a fig tree, since figs, common in the area, were viewed as an aphrodisiac. In Western Europe, the unnamed Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil became considered a form of apple, partly since the germanic word apple originally meant any kind of fruit, only later becoming specialised. The larynx in the human throat, noticeably more prominent in males, was consequently called an Adam's apple, due to a notion that it was caused by the forbidden fruit sticking in Adam's throat as he swallowed, and the name has stuck. The fig leaf became used more generally to cover up any nudity by any individual, and hence depictions involving apples came also to involve fig leafs. In Aramaic, the spelling of the name of Eve - חיויה or חיווי - also means snake. Together with the serpent of the story of the fall, this has lead to much iconography involving snakes wrapped around women. In particular, Lilith is often depicted with a snake wrapped around her. Such depictions were often an excuse for sexual suggestiveness, and phallic symbolism. References Mahmoud Ayoub, The Qur'an and its Interpreters, SUNY: Albany, 1984. R. Patai, The Jewish Alchemists, Princeton University Press, 1994. Fazale Rana and Ross, Hugh, Who Was Adam: A Creation Model Approach to the Origin of Man, 2005, ISBN 1-576-83577-4 Sibylline Oracles, III; 24-6. This Greek acrostic also appears in 2 Enoch 30:13. David Rohl, Legend: The Genesis of Civilisation, 1998 Bryan Sykes, The Seven Daughters of Eve See also The Seven Daughters of Eve Kaliyan Creation narrative Garden of Eden Mitochondrial Eve Pre-Adamite Similarities between the Bible and the Qur'an Y-chromosomal Adam External links First Human Beings (Library of Congress) The Story of Lilith in The Alphabet of Ben Sira Islamic view of the fall of Adam (audio)ar:آدم Search Term: "Adam_and_Eve" Categories: Torah people