God Squad: Reconciling two versions of the Creation Story

Dear Rabbi Gellman: I would appreciate your insight on a few questions that I have about the Creation Story. In Genesis 1 and 2 of the Bible there are two different versions of the story. Chapter 1 seems to say that God created humans, both male and female, at the same time. This seems to me to put the sexes on equal footing. However, Chapter 2 has man created first, then woman created out of man’s bone and flesh. What are your thoughts about these two very different versions?
 — B in Annville, Pennsylvania

MG: Dear B, thank you for your careful reading of the biblical account of Creation — particularly the creation of people. The first and second chapters of Genesis do seem to include two very different accounts of the Creation. The main difference, as you rightly observe, seems to be the status of women.

In Chapter 1, man and woman are made in the image of God out of red earth. In Chapter 2 the man, now named Adam, is made by God directly and the woman, named Eve, was also made by God but in a derivative way. She was created out of his rib.

Some have complained that the account in Chapter 2 seems to indicate that men are more holy than women because they were made directly by God. This seems to me a bit far-fetched. However, there is no doubt that we have two different and substantially conflicting stories in Genesis. Academic scholars of the Bible, who are not troubled by contradictions in the text the way religious scholars are, explain the contradiction by saying that these were two stories written by two different editors/authors of the Bible.

The final editor of the Bible, whom academic scholars call P (the priestly source), did not want to wipe out either story so they were both included, even though they contradicted each other.

Religious scholars who wrote midrashim (stories about the stories in the Bible) invented a bizarre story to reconcile the differences. It is the story of Lilith.

According to this midrash, Genesis 1 and 2 are actually the stories of the creation of two different women. The woman created in Chapter 1 was named Lilith. She had long red hair (from the red earth) and was made to be the full equal of man by God. Unfortunately, the first man had problems accepting the equality of the sexes and so he would constantly argue with Lilith, who had to constantly assert her equal status. Eventually, their bickering became so intense that Lilith flew away from Adam (oh, I forgot to tell you — Lilith had wings!)

God was upset with Adam and sent three angels, Senoi, Sansenoi and Semangeloff (I think they now have a law firm in Manhattan), to try to convince Lilith to return to Adam and tried to convince Adam not to be a chauvinist. Sadly, they failed in their mission and so God was forced to try another way. God created a second woman named Eve out of Adam’s rib. Adam falls in love with Eve, whom he identifies as “bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.” Lilith remains a witch-like figure who seduces men and kills babies. Lilith also became a kind of symbol for religious feminism among people who try to emancipate the biblical text from its patriarchal roots.

The legend of Lilith is psychologically complex and reveals how the effort to create spiritual harmony between the sexes was begun at the very beginning.