That's a good point.PaulSacramento wrote:DBowling wrote:
OK... let's see how Genesis uses this type of language just one chapter later to see if Genesis 3:20 is really claiming that Eve was the genetic progenitor of all humans.
In Genesis 4:20 Jabal is referred to as the "father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock".
Does this mean that Jabal is the genetic progenitor of all those who dwell in tents and have livestock?
In Genesis 4:21 Jubal is referred to as the "father of all those who play the lyre and pipe".
Does this mean that Jubal is the genetic progenitor of all those who play the lyre and pipe?
Understand that it is unlikely that any of Jabal's or Jubal's descendants survived Noah's Flood and Genesis was written after the Flood, so within the context of Genesis 3 and 4 this type of language ("father of...", "mother of...") cannot be be limited to meaning "genetic progenitor of...".
Add to that the fact that Eve doesn't mean that either.
Eve means "life" or living". (Chavvah)
From a root word that means to "show" or "declare" or to "breathe".
Still, the passage is petty explicit and states that the writer believed that Eve was the mother of all the living.
Even if the writer meant it only symbolically, he still meant that she was, in some way, the mother of all living humans.
It's one thing to denonstrate that "father of..." and "mother of..." does not necessarily mean "genetic progenitor of..." within the context of Genesis 3-4.
The question I didn't address was what does "mother of all living" mean then.
First let's look at the context of Adam and Eve in the Garden in Genesis 2-3.
The Garden is the place where God has chosen to dwell on the earth after he created and populated the earth in Genesis 1.
God has chosen the historical Adam and Eve to dwell in His presence in the Garden.
I believe this establishes Adam and Eve as achetypal representatives of mankind in the presence of God in the Garden.
I believe their names describe their representative roles.
Adam means "mankind", therefore Adam was the archetypal representative of all mankind before God in the Garden.
Eve means "giver of life" (love that name... we named our daughter Eve), therefore Eve was the archetypal representative of all women/mothers before God in the Garden.
Their relationship was also archetypal of God's design for the fundamental building block of human culture... marriage and the family.
In Christ