with the thought of mortality in 19 (Kn.), are forced. The
most suitable position in the present text would be before
(so Jub. iii. 33) or after 41; and accordingly some regard
it as a misplaced gloss in explanation of that v. But when
we consider (a) that the name Ḥavvāh must in any case be
traditional, (b) that it is a proper name, whereas (
Hebrew characters)
remains appellative throughout, and (c) that in the following
vv. there are unambiguous traces of a second recension
of the Paradise story, it is reasonable to suppose that v.20
comes from that recension, and is a parallel to the naming
of the woman in 223, whether it stands here in the original
order or not. The fact that the name Eve has been preserved,
while there is no distinctive name for the man,
suggests that, (Hebrew characters) is a survival from a more primitive theory
of human origins in which the first mother represented the
unity of the race.—the mother of every living thing] According
to this derivation, (Hebrew characters) would seem to denote first the
idea of life, and then the source of life—the mother.[1] But
title of 'Mother of all living' (see Gres. l.c. 359 f.). Precarious as
such combinations may seem, there is no objection in principle to an
explanation of the name Ḥavvah on these lines. Besides the Ḥivvites
of the OT (who were probably a serpent-tribe), We. cites examples of
Semitic princely families that traced their genealogy back to a serpent.
The substitution of human for animal ancestry, and the transference
of the animal name to the human ancestor, are phenomena frequently
observed in the transition from a lower to a higher stage of religion.
If the change took place while a law of female descent still prevailed,
the ancestry would naturally be traced to a woman (or goddess); and
when the law of male kinship was introduced she would as naturally
be identified with the wife of the first man. It need hardly be said that
all this, while possibly throwing some light on the mythical background
of the biblical narrative, is quite apart from the religious significance
of the story of the Fall in itself.—(Hebrew characters)] Rob. Sm. renders 'mother of
every ḥayy,'—ḥayy being the Arab. word which originally denoted a
group of female kinship. Thus "Eve is the personification of the bond
of kinship (conceived as exclusively mother-kinship), just as Adam is
simply 'man,' i.e. the personification of mankind" (KM2, 208). The
interpretation has found no support.
- ↑ So Baethgen, Beitr. 148, who appends the note: "Im holsteinischen Plattdeutsch ist 'Dat Leben' euphemistischer Ausdruck für das pudendum muliebre"—a meaning by the way which also attaches to Ar. ḥayy (Lane, Lex. 681 b).
