Introduction to “Eve’s Curse: Redemptive Readings of Genesis 3:16”

Genesis 3:16 has traditionally been interpreted as proof of woman’s inferiority, of her nefarious powers of seduction, and as a license for men to rule and master her. Such an interpretation seems to have much greater affinity with the Hellenistic context from which it arose than with its immediate Hebraic and Ancient Near Eastern context (Cf. Doukhan 2020). If we are to remain faithful to this context—where woman was held in high esteem—we need more than ever to approach Genesis 3:16 with a lens that is not violent to the woman. A new exegetical lens on Genesis 3:16 is needed, one that is redemptive rather than punitive. This will entail the re-interpretation of two key concepts, “rule” (mashal) and “loving intention” (teshuqah), from an Ancient Near Eastern and Hebrew inter-textual perspective rather than through a Greek philosophical lens, as well as reading in light of the immediate context of God’s words to the serpent and to the man, which frame the woman’s “curse”. This Special Issue is a compilation of audacious, imaginative, and courageous readings of this text by scholars coming from very different worlds: traditional approaches to the text coexist with critical ones, Jewish interpreters grapple alongside Christian ones, male commentators are in dialogue with female commentators, and Biblical scholars think alongside literary critics, philosophers, and psychoanalysts, giving rise to a rich and complex tapestry of significations of the ancient “curse” of woman and breaking new ground in the understanding of woman, of man, and of gender relations. But before more can be said on this new ground, let us turn back to an “older” “reality, that of the history of the interpretation of this text.

The history of its interpretation—both Jewish and Christian—is unanimous when it comes to Genesis 3:16: The curse was given to woman by God in order not only to punish her for inciting and seducing man into sin through her “desire” of him (teshuqah) but also to prevent such an incitement from ever happening again. This prevention is contained in God’s giving man the prerogative to “rule” (mashal) over the woman, thereby reining in her seductive powers and becoming lord over her sexuality and desires. History has shown the myriad of ways in which this curse has been applied: from the command given to woman that she submit to the man in all things to the careful guard set on her sexuality and feminine body. Chastity, modesty, and submission have become the three watchdogs of a woman’s body and sexual desire and have been powerfully enforced throughout the ages, through constant vigilance and indoctrination and ultimately physical coercion and violence.

In Judaism, Philo’s commentary on this passage offers a damning portrait of woman’s inherent moral depravity: “But the woman was more accustomed to be deceived than the man. For his counsels as well as his body are of a masculine sort, and competent to disentangle the notions of seduction; but the mind of the woman is more effeminate, so that through her softness she easily yields and is easily caught by the persuasions of falsehood, which imitate the resemblance of truth”.1 Thus, it is not just accidentally that Eve sinned. She sinned because she was a woman, inasmuch as the feminine body is inherently yielding and easily influenced. Women are thus inherently weak when it comes to the moral playing field. And it is precisely because women are the morally “weaker sex” that they need the rulership of man. Just as the senses need to be subjugated by the mind, women, as naturally sensuous creatures, need to be subjugated by men who are naturally more rational: “In the allegorical sense, however, woman is a symbol of sense and man, of mind”.2 And so, according to Philo, “Man’s sin was that he gave up his rightful position as master to subordinate himself to the woman”.3 Such a reading of the text can also be found in the midrash,4 medieval commentators such as Rashi and Nachmanides,5 and even in some hermeneutical circles today.

The Christian tradition falls into the same line of interpretation. Quoting the writings of Paul, Ambrose observes, “She was first to be deceived and was responsible for deceiving the man. Wherefore the Apostle Paul has related that holy women have in olden times been subject to the stronger vessel and recommends them to obey their husbands as their masters. (1 Peter 3:1). And Paul says, “Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and was in sin (1 Tim 2:14). This is a warning that no one ought to rely on himself, for she who was made for assistance needs the protection of a man (Gen 2:18). The head of the woman is man, who, while he believed that he would have the assistance of his wife, fell because of her (1 Cor 11:3)”.6 Ambrose concludes with the moral superiority of man over woman, and as a result, it becomes the man’s legitimate task to lead the woman and lord over her. And the woman, by virtue of her inherent moral depravity, must obey and submit. This perspective has permeated Christian exegetical circles throughout the history of its interpretation in the commentaries of Tertullian and Aquinas7 and lingers on even in some contemporary exegetical work.

Contemporary work on this passage, under the scrutiny of the Feminist gaze, has attempted to offer interpretations of this passage that are more woman-friendly. These interpretations fall into two categories: those interpretations that try to “soften” the passage to imply that the man is to offer the woman a benevolent and protective “rule” (mashal),8 one that seeks not to oppress or dominate her but rather protect her, and those interpretations that see Genesis 3:16 as a necessary evil that befalls the woman as a result of sin and henceforth becomes her daily reality. The latter interpretation does not read this passage as “prescriptive” as the first group of interpreters would but rather as “descriptive” of women’s realities in the Ancient Near East.9 Both sets of interpretations see the submission of the woman to the man as a necessary evil having befallen the woman after the fall. The first category of interpreters understands the submission of the woman to the man as a result of sin and as the new post-fall Biblical framework of leadership. While in Eden, this leadership was shared between the man and the woman, in a sinful world, however, a hierarchy becomes necessary, with man being given the headship over woman. The second category of interpreters sees the woman’s subservience to the man as a necessary evil in a fallen world riddled with dangers and threats to survival—the woman thus surrenders her will to the man, who in turn becomes her protector in a savage and brutal world. Both sets of interpretations, however, fail to see all of the redemptive possibilities that might still lay dormant in the text. This Special Issue has ventured into this pioneering territory of attempting to gather the “sparks of redemption” latent in Genesis 3:16.

We start this Special Issue with an essay by Tamara Eskenazi on the problem of the translation of this difficult and contentious Biblical passage. In her essay “Death and Life in the Hands of the Translators”, Eskenazi offers a damning portrait of ancient and modern translations of Genesis 3:16, highlighting in the very work of the translators a negative bias against the woman. Eskenazi shows this especially with regards to the translation of the Hebrew word itsabon, which appears in both the woman’s and the man’s judgment but finds itself translated differently in a way that seems to exacerbate the woman’s chastisement. The woman thus finds herself doubly punished, once by God and a second time by the translators.

The next two essays explore Gen. 3:16 in light of its ANE sociological and literary context. Carol Meyers, in “Genesis 3:16—Text and Context”, offers a reframing of Gen. 3:16 in light of its ANE agricultural context. Meyers describes the dire conditions of survival in the Biblical world, where water was scarce, the land was difficult to cultivate, and families depended on childbirth for manpower in the fields. The woman’s life and survival was, in this context, fraught with dangers, including the dangers of dying during childbirth. Against this backdrop, our text can be seen in a very different light from that previously understood. The woman’s teshuqah (“desire”) can be understood as a “turning” of the woman towards the man for protection, and the man’s mashal (“rule”) can be understood as the man offering protection and cover for this woman needing his protection. These terms must then be understood strictly in this context and need not reflect a general subservience of women to men.

Abi Doukhan, in her essay “Eve and the Goddess Inanna: Reading Genesis 3:16b in Light of Sacred Marriage Cultic Literature”, offers a reading of Gen. 3:16 against the backdrop of the ANE story of Inanna and Dumuzi. Bringing to light the parallels between these two stories, she concludes that Gen. 3:16 might be read as sacred marriage literature, whereby the man, far from dominating the woman, finds rather his authority invested and inaugurated by the woman. Just like the goddess Inanna who, through her love and sacred marriage to Dumuzi, invests him with the authority to rule her city, Eve’s loving intention (teshuqah) can be seen as investing and returning to Adam the reign (mashal) that he lost upon eating the fruit. In this light, the man’s rule (mashal) finds itself deployed not “over” the woman—as translators have understood it to be—but rather “through” her. This translation of the preposition b- as “through” rather than “over” finds precedent incidentally in the book of Proverbs, where Woman Wisdom—whose depictions resemble those of an ANE goddess—is seen as the one “through” which rulers rule and kings reign, thereby consolidating the interpretation above.

The next two essays offer a Messianic reframing of Gen. 3:16, thereby casting it in a redemptive, even Messianic, light. Jacques Doukhan’s paper “Tragic Curse or Messianic Hope? Reading Genesis 3:16 in Light of Genesis 3:15” focuses on the parallels between Gen. 3:15 and Gen. 3:16, thereby setting the divine judgment of Gen. 3:16 within the context of a Messianic light of redemption and salvation. The concepts of mashal (“rule”) and of teshuqah (“desire”) thus must be read as redemptive rather than as punitive. As such, teshuqah will come to represent the woman’s loving intent towards the man, and mashal, read in the light of the story of Joseph, becomes understood in the sense of provision, protection, and nurture. As such, Adam recovers his royal role as protector not only of his wife but of the entire world—a role that he forfeited by eating the fruit.

Richard Davidson’s “Mosaic of Meaning: A Redemptive Reading of Genesis 3:16 in Light of its Biblical Contexts and Inter-Texts” offers further elucidation of male “rule” (mashal) in light of the Messianic resonance of Gen. 3:16. Davidson first offers a reading of Genesis 3:16 that situates it within a “mosaic” of other Biblical passages, serving to illuminate it in a positive light. The first of these passages are Gen. 1:27 and Gen. 2:22–23, where God decrees the human couple’s relational dynamic as non-hierarchical and egalitarian, thereby setting forward an irreversible paradigm for the marital relationship before and after the fall. Davidson then turns to the two problematic terms teshuqah (“desire”) and mashal (“rule”) and shows that both constitute instances of divine foresight and blessing, with teshuqah drawing the woman back to the man and mashal needing to be understood as “servant-leadership”, in light of parallel Biblical passages ascribing mashal to Yahweh and to the future Messiah, thereby giving mashal a Messianic connotation already hinted at through the parallels between Gen. 3:15 and Gen. 3:16.

Arlyn Drew’s essay, “Unbinding Genesis 3:16: A Theocentric Critique of Sex-Based Power”, constitutes an attempt to go beyond both the etiological understandings of the text—interpreting Gen. 3:16 as a description of how things would unfold for the woman in the ANE patriarchal context—and the attempts to “soften” the man’s rule (mashal) and understand it as a form of protective servant-leadership. According to Drew, none of the above interpretations really take aim at the power asymmetry that seems to arise between the man and the woman in Gen. 3:16. Taking her cue from other parallel passages and from the semantic richness of the Hebrew language, Drew argues that the proposition “he shall rule over you” might also be translated “he shall rule with you”, translating the preposition b- as “with” rather than “over”. Such a translation not only reverses any form of hierarchy between male and female but also has restorative and redemptive implications for the human couple, constituting an invitation to again rule together, as was prescribed in the original blueprint of Creation.

The next two papers offer a literary reading of our passage, focusing on the literary stylistic devices of “reframing” and “defamiliarization”. In her essay “Reframing Genesis 3:16: Eve’s Creation Memoir”, Mathilde Frey shows that both Genesis 3:16 and Genesis 4:1–5:2 have been placed by the ancient scribes between two setumah markers, thereby pointing to their inter-connectivity. Frey then goes on to show that Genesis 4:1–5:2 constitutes Eve’s creative and redemptive retelling of the judgment given to her by God in Genesis 3:16. Thus, in Eve’s creative narrative (Gen. 4:1–5:2), childbirth now becomes associated with a personal act of creation rather than with the passivity of suffering and pertains to her relationship to Yahweh rather than to a relationship marked by the domination of man over woman. As such, Eve does no less than reverse the ancient “curse” of woman in a bold, courageous, and original narrative.

Carol Fontaine’s “Reverse the Curse: Genesis, Defamiliarization and the Song of Songs” offers a compelling new vision of our passage. Fontaine uses the Russian literary concept of “defamiliarization” to elucidate what the Song of Songs might be to Genesis 3:16. Defamiliarization is a literary device by which the familiar and the ordinary finds itself transfigured and its hidden facets illuminated by its poetic rendering. Similarly, according to Fontaine, the Song of Songs defamiliarizes Gen. 3:16, rehearsing all of its themes but weaving them in such a way that they are transfigured, transformed, and given new significations. This defamiliarization sheds a new light on the concepts of “desire” (teshuqah) and “rule” (mashal): in the Song of Songs, teshuqah is now ascribed to the man, and his mashal or possessiveness is now shared between the two lovers. The Song of Songs thus seems to “rewrite” the divine judgment imparted in Gen. 3:16 in a way that not only transfigures the lovers but also liberates them.

The next three papers offer a philosophical reading of Gen. 3:16. Ryan Kelly’s “Neither Cursed nor Punished: Natural Law in Genesis 2–3 and J” offers an original take on the garden scene that precedes the divine judgment in Gen. 3:16. According to Kelly, God does not command, rather he advises, that the fruit not be eaten because of the mortal consequences associated with eating it. Thus, the human couple has not transgressed any explicit divine command, or “positive law”, and therefore, they not being punished either. But why then are they expelled from the garden and ascribed such difficulties by the divine judgment? The expulsion of the human couple from the garden has much more to do with the human couple’s overstepping over the “natural law” of the sacred boundary between the human and the divine. God then intervenes to restore that boundary, expelling the couple from Eden and throwing them back upon their humanity with all of the pain and precariousness the human condition entails.

Catherine Chalier’s “Blessing and Cursing: A Philosophical Reading of Genesis 3:16” also goes back in time to the original blessing conferred upon the human couple in Genesis 1 to live their lives, together as man and woman, as a reflection of the goodness of God. Such a blessing, because it has been uttered by God himself, is irreversible, no matter what will ensue. Thus, the divine judgment over the man and the woman uttered in Genesis 3:16 cannot overturn the original blessing over her and her man; it cannot overturn their inherent “goodness”, nor their bearing of the divine image. This is all the more the case inasmuch as no curse is ever uttered against the man or the woman. The difficulties they encounter—pain and tensions in their relationship—thus in no way constitute a curse but rather the trial by fire that the human couple must now traverse in order to repair a broken world.

Orietta Ombrosi’s “There is Worse: The Serpent’s Curse Compared to that of Eve” initiates us to the perspective of the serpent. A liminal creature, more “cunning” than the other animals, but yet not quite human, the serpent is a tragic figure which sees its rise to individuation cut down by the divine decree. Ombrosi’s essays invites us to imagine this downfall of the serpent from the latter’s perspective. The serpent is incidentally the only one, out of the three transgressors, to be cursed, thereby becoming the very locus of evil. The man and the woman, on the other hand, while chastised, are exonerated, making the serpent perhaps the very first scapegoat in human history. As such, it is not just the woman who stands in need of redemption but the serpent also, and, by extension, the whole animal kingdom.

Our last essay by Sanford Drob offers a psychoanalyst’s take on our passage. In “The Eden Complex: Transgression and Transformation in the Bible, Freud and Jung”, Drob interprets the story of Adam and Eve as constituting the emergence of what he terms the “Eden Complex”, thereby offering an alternative paradigm to the Freudian “Oedipus Complex” through which to understand human evolution and individuation. In contrast to the Oedipus Complex, which casts a negative light on transgressive behavior, the Eden Complex sees transgression as a necessary step to individuation, thereby shedding a new positive light on Adam and Eve’s transgression of the divine command. The Eden Complex, far from bringing condemnation upon Adam and Eve’s so-called “moral failure”, sees the latter rather as a necessary step towards adulthood, responsibility, and the creation of new values.

This Special Issue offers a true mosaic of perspectives on Genesis 3:16, with each one bringing redemption to this difficult and contentious scripture in a unique way. Exegetical, literary, philosophical, and psychoanalytic perspectives are woven together to offer a tapestry of new significations and meanings for Genesis 3:16, setting it in a new light, a redemptive, salvatory, even Messianic light. The new meanings ascribed to this foundational scripture on gender relations must now illuminate the entire Biblical canon. Both Hebrew and Christian scriptures can now be read against this new horizon of redemptive readings. The whole story of patriarchs and matriarchs can be understood as a continuation of “Eve’s Creation Memoir”, with women’s stories, voices, and relationships transfigured by the new lighting given to Eve. But Christian narratives of the submission of women in the church and in the marital relationship must also now be re-read in this new light. We have glimpsed how the “rule” (mashal) of the man in Genesis 3:16 has Messianic connotations of “servant-leadership”. How might we now read the passages in Ephesians on gender relations in this new light? How might we even understand the role of the Church, as the “bride of Christ”, in light of the ancient scripture of Genesis 3:16?