Eve - Abraham 5:14-19, Moses 3:18-25, Genesis 2:18-25

Now that “man” is created and given life, all three accounts note that God says “it was not good that the man should be alone.” I think about this sometimes and especially now that I’m older and have been single for so much of my adult life. I know that we are not meant to be solitary creatures, humans are meant to be together in groups, but here in this fallen world there is so much loneliness and it’s such an interesting and tragic concept. It’s not good for man to be alone, so God decides “I will make an help meet for him.” One interesting thing is that Moses is the only account where God “formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air,” and took them all to Adam to be named. Both Genesis and Abraham say that God had Adam name the animals AFTER creating Eve, which seems fairly benign but what a way to say that someone isn’t important, have two people there and only ask the man’s opinion on what to name the animals. With the “help meet” and disinterest in Eve’s opinion, it really sets her up in a place of subservience, since her only purpose and responsibility is “helping” Adam do whatever it is he wants to do. I can see why Satan might have wanted to have that part of the story switched around. In Moses, even with all the animals and the job of naming them, “there was not found an help meet for him.” The IM notes, “God gave Adam dominion over all living things. As an example of his righteous dominion, Adam named all the animals, male and female. Unlike the animals he named, Adam did not have a companion.” This statement made me wonder there was a more complex psychological process to Eve’s creation than simply God showing up one day with her saying, “here Adam this will make you happy.” That would be like getting a gift you didn’t know you wanted and then afterward you think “oh yeah this has greatly improved the quality of my life.” But the implication in events happening this way is that you’re not all that convinced that your life wouldn’t have been awesome without this gift. It’s like your parent saying, “it’s not good to be uneducated,” and then sends you to school when all you wanted to do was stay home and watch TV, you have to trust them that it’s in your best interest. Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but when Adam was naming all these animals, maybe he noticed that all the male animals had female counterparts and that they were paired together. Maybe he noticed that he was the only animal in the garden without a female companion and asked God about it. Maybe he tried to find companionship with the animals, but couldn’t find anything fulfilling with them. Again, maybe I’m going too far with this, but if Adam was able to recognize what he wanted out of a partner, he would have been that much more invested in the creative process of Eve and valued her that much more. As far as the word “helpmeet” goes, the IM quotes President Howard W. Hunter as teaching, “A man who holds the priesthood accepts his wife as a partner in the leadership of the home and family with full knowledge of and full participation in all decisions relating thereto… The Lord intended that the wife be a helpmeet for man (meet means equal)- that is, a companion equal and necessary in full partnership.” The relationship between two people when one is a lone for a long time, then suddenly the other one shows up unsolicited, can be complicated. Whereas is Adam knew he wanted a partner then he would have valued her as such from the beginning, maybe. All three versions record Eve’s creation in the same sequence, God causes Adam to fall into a deep sleep, takes on of his ribs, closes him back up and makes a woman out of the rib. This was all very suspicious to me when I was younger but the IM quotes President Spencer W. Kimball as noting, “the story of the rib, of course, is figurative.” I’ve seen a thing that says something like “the woman was created from man’s rib to be held under his arm and cherished. Not from his head to rule over him, not from his feet to be his doormat, but from his side, close to his heart.” Kind of corny but I liked it anyway. Maybe it’s the same way a mother feels about a child that was born from her body, but Adam took Eve being created from his body pretty seriously. He says, “This I know now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh.” Since we know that the rib version of events is not literal, then how was Eve physically a part of Adam’s body? She probably wasn’t, but to me these words are poetic in the same way that wedding vows are. So maybe he’s not commenting on the literality of her being a part of him, but instead committing to her in the way that he will love and serve her like she was a part of his own body. Another interesting note is the last part where Adam talks about leaving “his father and his mother” to be with his wife, which makes me wonder just how much contact Adam had with his Heavenly Parents before that happened. If he was still spending quite a bit of time with them, then that phrase would explain him deciding to spend his time and energy with his wife instead of his parents. But another way to look at this would be after Eve ate the fruit and was going to be cast out of the garden. At that point Adam hadn’t done anything wrong, so really he could have stayed there in the garden and only Eve would have been cast out. But when the choice came, Adam chose to leave his “Father and Mother” and “cleave” unto his wife. I had an epiphany about this one time in the temple, he could have stayed, but he loved her so much that he followed her into the fallen world. All these accounts end with the statement, “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” We have to remember that in the Garden, Adam and Eve were like children in that they were innocent, not driven by hormones or physical passions, so basically, being naked wasn’t even something that was noticed. Also this shows that they were married before sex even came into the picture which really can put a different perspective on the purpose and depth of the marriage commitment. The IM notes that the marriage of A&E was performed by Heavenly Father Himself and that the “sealing” together in marriage can be likened to being welded together in permanence. About them being naked the IM says, “Adam and Eve were innocent in the Garden of Eden, not knowing good and evil and not feeling any shame or embarrassment over their nakedness. These are emotions that came after the Fall. Adam and Eve were much like little children who are naturally naïve and trusting and lacking self-consciousness and knowledge of good and evil because they are innocent.”